Disk-instability model for black hole transients: Interplay of thermal and tidal instabilities

Details Disk-instability model for black hole transients: Interplay of thermal and tidal instabilities Disk-instability model for black hole transients: Interplay of thermal and tidal instabilities

Nov 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994apj...435..748i&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 435, no. 2, p. 748-755

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

16

Accretion Disks, Black Holes (Astronomy), Mathematical Models, X Ray Spectra, X Ray Stars, Emission Spectra, Flux Density, Hubble Space Telescope

Scientific paper

The interplay of thermal and tidal instabilities is studied in the context of outbursts of black-hole X-ray transients. We assume that the main outbursts of black-hole transients are caused by a thermal instability of the disk. To trigger a tidal instability, a thermal instability should propagate to the outer rim of the disk. This is possible in the black-hole accretion disks with large sizes (approx. 1011 cm) and low mass-input rates (approx. 10-10 solar mass/yr), only if the viscosity parameter has a radial dependence during the quiescence; alpha approx. equal to alpha 0(r/1011 cm)b with alpha0 approximately 0.01 and b approx. greater than 1.0. When triggered, a tidal instability induces a gradual disk shrinkage and periodically enhanced tidal dissipation. The former effect causes rather slow exponential decays and may also explain the observed third peak in the light curve, depending on the magnitude of a tidal dissipation. When the disk shrinks to its minimum size, optical and X-ray fluxes start to decay rapidly. We suggest that long outburst durations, long recurrence times, and the presence of the third maxima could all be the consequences of a tidal instability, which is easier to trigger in black-hole transients than in neutron-star transients.

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