Related papers: Instability of non-Keplerian warped discs

High-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations detected in the light curves of black hole candidates can, according to one model, be identified with hydrodynamic oscillations of the accretion disc. We describe a non-linear coupling mechanism,…

We describe some recent nonlinear three dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of accretion discs in binary systems where the orbit is circular and not necessarily coplanar with the disc midplane. The calculations are relevant to a number of…

Standard accretion disk theory is formulated which is based on the local heat balance. The energy produced by a turbulent viscous heating is supposed to be emitted to the sides of the disc. Sources of turbulence in the accretion disc are…

The theory of radiatively-induced warps in accretion discs is applied to the discs of Be stars. It is found that these discs may develop warps in their inner regions, although once the warp amplitude is large enough then the interaction…

We study a warping instability of a geometrically thin, non-self-gravitating, circumbinary disk around young binary stars on an eccentric orbit. Such a disk is subject to both the tidal torques due to a time-dependent binary potential and…

Quasar microlensing effects make it possible to measure the accretion disc sizes around distant supermassive black holes that are still well beyond the spatial resolution of contemporary instrumentation. The sizes measured with this…

We consider the evolution of a warped disc around a Kerr black hole, under conditions such that the warp propagates in a wavelike manner. This occurs when the dimensionless effective viscosity, alpha, that damps the warp is less than the…

Any perturbation to a disc galaxy that creates a misalignment between the planes of the inner and outer disc, will excite a slowly evolving bending wave in the outer disc. The torque from the stiff inner disc drives a retrograde,…

Accretion discs are fundamental to many astrophysical systems, providing the conversion of gravitational potential energy into radiation that we can observe. In many systems there is evidence that discs are warped; from spatially-resolved…

Accretion disc outbursts are re-occurring events observed in various astrophysical systems, including X-ray binaries and cataclysmic variables. These outbursts are characterized by a sudden increase in luminosity due to various…

We discuss the possibility that astrophysical accretion disks are dynamically unstable to non-axisymmetric disturbances with characteristic scales much smaller than the vertical scale height. The instability is studied using three methods:…

We study the formation of accretion disks resulting from dynamical three dimensional binary coalescence calculations, where a neutron star is tidally disrupted before being swallowed by its black hole companion. By subsequently assuming…

Binary star systems can accrete material originating from a circumbinary disc. Since it is common for the circumbinary disc to be tilted with respect to the binary orbital plane, we test whether the accretion dynamics can be a diagnostic…

We study the stability of poloidal magnetic fields anchored in a thin accretion disc. The two-dimensional hydrodynamics in the disc plane is followed by a grid-based numerical simulation including the vertically integrated magnetic forces.…

We present a perturbation theory for studying the instabilities of non-axisymmetric gaseous discs. We perturb the dynamical equations of self-gravitating fluids in the vicinity of a non-axisymmetric equilibrium, and expand the perturbed…

In recent years, it has been demonstrated that massive stars see their infant circumstellar medium shaped into a large, irradiated, gravitationally unstable accretion disc during their early formation phase. Such discs constitute the gas…

We consider the shape of an accretion disc whose outer regions are misaligned with the spin axis of a central black hole and calculate the steady state form of the warped disc in the case where the viscosity and surface densities are power…

The non-linear hydrodynamic stability of thin, compressible, Keplerian disks is studied on the large two-dimensional compressible scale, using a high-order accuracy spectral method. We show that purely hydrodynamic perturbations, while…

(Abridged) To gain insight into the dynamical influence of a supermassive black hole binary on a circumbinary accretion disk, we investigate the binary and viscous torque densities throughout such a disk, with emphasis on the final density…

Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…