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arXiv · 1507.05960

AGN Flickering and Chaotic Accretion

Andrew King·Chris Nixon
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Abstract

Observational arguments suggest that the growth phases of the supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei have a characteristic timescale $\sim 10^5$ yr. We show that this is the timescale expected in the chaotic accretion picture of black hole feeding, because of the effect of self-gravity in limiting the mass of any accretion disc feeding event.

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Andrew King, Chris Nixon. 2015-07-21. AGN Flickering and Chaotic Accretion. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slv098

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