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Liberation of Specific Angular Momentum Through Radiation and Scattering in Relativistic Black-Hole Accretion Disks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2015

Adam R. H. Stevens*
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia Institute of Astronomy and Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0HA, United Kingdom
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Abstract

A key component of explaining the array of galaxies observed in the Universe is the feedback of active galactic nuclei, each powered by a massive black hole’s accretion disk. For accretion to occur, angular momentum must be lost by that which is accreted. Electromagnetic radiation must offer some respite in this regard, the contribution for which is quantified in this paper, using solely general relativity, under the thin-disk regime. Herein, I calculate extremised situations where photons are entirely responsible for energy removal in the disk and then extend and relate this to the standard relativistic accretion disk outlined by Novikov & Thorne, which includes internal angular-momentum transport. While there is potential for the contribution of angular-momentum removal from photons to be ≳ 1% out to ~ 104 Schwarzschild radii if the disk is irradiated and maximally liberated of angular momentum through inverse Compton scattering, it is more likely of order 102 Schwarzschild radii if thermal emission from the disk itself is stronger. The effect of radiation/scattering is stronger near the horizons of fast-spinning black holes, but, ultimately, other mechanisms must drive angular-momentum liberation/transport in accretion disks.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2015 
Figure 0

Figure 1. (Specific) angular momentum lost to photons relative to the (specific-)angular-momentum gap between adjacent, equatorial, circular orbits in a relativistic accretion disk as a function of radius. Thick curves apply for an accretion disk around a non-spinning black hole, while thin curves are for a hole spinning with $\bar{a} = 0.998$ (the maximum of Thorne 1974). The dot-dashed curves assume photons are emitted with energy equal to the difference of the orbits and are angled to the accretion disk plane such that the ϕ-velocity of the photons matches that of the disk itself (see Section 3.1). The solid curves follow the solution of Novikov & Thorne (1973), which include effects of internal torques (outlined further in Section 3.2). The dashed curves also account for internal torques, and show the upper limit of scattering, where the momentum imparted on photons is parallel to the ϕ-direction (Section 3.3).

Figure 1

Figure 2. Relative energy scattered away or emitted through photons between infinitesimally adjacent orbits for a Novikov & Thorne (1973) accretion disk (solid curves, Section 3.2) and a maximally scattering-dominant disk with internal angular-momentum transport (dashed curves, Section 3.3) around non-spinning (thick curves) and maximally spinning (thin curves) black holes. Where the curves pass above a value of 1 (dot-dashed line), extra energy is radiated away, transferred internally within the disk. The dotted line indicates an asymptote; at large radii, a massive particle in the disk emits a photon with thrice the necessary energy to reach its adjacent lower orbit to account for energy supplied by internal transport.