The Marginally Stable Circular Orbit of the Fluid Disk around a Black Hole

Abstract

The inner boundary of a black hole accretion disk is often set to the marginally stable circular orbit (or the innermost stable circular orbit, ISCO) around the black hole. It is important for the theories of black hole accretion disks and their applications to astrophysical black hole systems. Traditionally, the marginally stable circular orbit is obtained by considering the equatorial motion of a test particle around a black hole. However, in reality the accretion flow around black holes consists of fluid, in which the pressure often plays an important role. Here we consider the influence of fluid pressure on the location of marginally stable circular orbit around black holes. It is found that when the temperature of the fluid is so low that the thermal energy of a particle is much smaller than its rest energy, the location of marginally stable circular orbit is almost the same as that in the test particle case. However, we demonstrate that in some special cases the marginally stable circular orbit can be different when the fluid pressure is large and the thermal energy becomes non-negligible comparing with the rest energy. We present our results for both the cases of non-spinning and spinning black holes. The influences of our results on the black hole spin parameter measurement in X-ray binaries and the energy release efficiency of accretion flows around black holes are discussed.