Related papers: Hydrogen-Poor Disks in Compact X-Ray Binaries
Observations of black hole binaries (BHBs) have established a rich phenomenology of X-ray states. The soft states range from the low variability, accretion disc dominated thermal state (TD) to the higher variability, non-thermal steep power…
We present an instability occurring in the inner part of disks threaded by a moderately strong vertical (poloidal) magnetic field. Its mechanism is such that a spiral density wave in the disk, driven by magnetic stresses (rather than…
Models of black hole accretion disks are reviewed, with an emphasis on the theory of hard X-ray production. The following models are considered: i) standard, ii) super-critical, iii) two-temperature, and iv) disk+corona. New developments…
The radiation-driven warping instability discovered by Pringle holds considerable promise as the mechanism responsible for producing warped, precessing accretion disks in X-ray binaries. This instability is an inherently global mode of the…
Despite early theoretical expectations that large-scale, massive outflows would be triggered by accretion onto black holes and neutron stars, their presence was not firmly established until the 2000s. Since then, these accretion disc winds…
Many astrophysical sources, e.g., cataclysmic variables, X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, exhibit a wind outflow, when they reveal a multicolor blackbody spectrum, hence harboring a geometrically thin Keplerian accretion disk. Unlike…
The hydrodynamic stability of accretion disks is considered. The particular question is whether the combined action of a (stable) vertical density stratification and a (stable) radial differential rotation gives rise to a new instability…
A complete analytical and numerical treatment of all magnetohydrodynamic waves and instabilities for radially stratified, magnetized accretion disks is presented. The instabilities are a possible source of anomalous transport. While…
Radiation pressure-dominated accretion disks are predicted to exhibit strong density inhomogeneities on scales much smaller than the disk scale height, due to the nonlinear development of photon bubble instability. Radiation would escape…
We review radiative processes responsible for X-ray emission in hard (low) and soft (high) spectral states of black-hole binaries. The main process in the hard state appears to be scattering of blackbody photons from a cold disk by thermal…
Accretion disks in binary systems can experience hydrodynamic impact at inner as well as outer edges. The first case is typical for protoplanetary disks around young T Tau stars. The second one is typical for circumstellar disks in close…
We present an instability, occurring in the inner region of magnetized accretion disks, which seems to be a good candidate to explain the low-frequency QPO observed in many X-ray binaries. We then briefly show how, in the remarkable case of…
The conventional thermal instability criterion can not be applied to the advection-dominated accretion disks around black holes where the radiative cooling is insufficient to balance the viscous heating. The surface density change…
We explore the properties of cold gravitoturbulent accretion disks - non-fragmenting disks hovering on the verge of gravitational instability - using a realistic prescription for the effective viscosity caused by gravitational torques. This…
A significant number of X-ray binaries are now known to exhibit long-term ``superorbital'' periodicities on timescales of $\sim$ 10 - 100 days. Several physical mechanisms have been proposed that give rise to such periodicities, in…
We investigate accretion disk winds commonly observed in galactic black hole (BH) X-ray binaries (XRB), which manifest as blueshifted absorption features in X-ray spectra. We model these winds as ideal magnetohydrodynamic outflows of hot…
The effects of radial advection and thermal diffusion were considered in investigating the linear stability of an optically thin, two-temperature accretion disc. If the disc has only very little advection, we proved that the thermal…
X-ray polarimetry is a fine tool to probe the accretion geometry and physical processes operating in the proximity of compact objects, black holes and neutron stars. Recent discoveries made by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer put our…
A photon or neutrino gas--semi-contained by a baryonic species through scattering--comprises a rather peculiar MHD fluid where the magnetic field is truly frozen only to the co-moving volume associated with the mass density. Although…
A review is given on aspects of indirect imaging techniques in X-ray binaries which are used as diagnostics tools for probing the X-ray dominated accretion disc physics. These techniques utilize observed properties such as the emission line…