Pair production instabilities as a source of X-ray flares from accreting black holes

Details Pair production instabilities as a source of X-ray flares from accreting black holes Pair production instabilities as a source of X-ray flares from accreting black holes

Feb 1986

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1986natur.319..649m&link_type=abstract

Nature (ISSN 0028-0836), vol. 319, Feb. 20, 1986, p. 649-652.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

18

Black Holes (Astronomy), Electron-Positron Pairs, Galactic Radiation, Pair Production, Stellar Mass Accretion, X Ray Sources, Active Galactic Nuclei, Active Galaxies, Periodic Variations, Stability

Scientific paper

Observations suggest that the high-energy spectra of active galaxies are strongly variable and are cutoff or broken at about 1 MeV. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the high-energy radiation is produced in the central region of the two-dimensional plasma accreting onto a supermassive black hole. It is shown that e(+)-e(-) pair production instability in the central region of the accreting black hole leads to cyclic variations of the accretion flow when the proton temperature is close to its virial value, kT virialp is equal to about GMmp/R (where mp and M are the masses of the protons and the central object, respectively. It is suggested that large amplitude luminosity changes found in hard X-rays and soft X-rays, as well as the soft X-ray outbursts observed in several active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are due to this mechanism. The above scenario may also be responsible for the short-time-scale quasi-periodic variability in some galactic black holes.

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