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arXiv · astro-ph/9701139

Advection-Dominated Accretion and Black Hole Event Horizons

Ramesh Narayan·Michael R. Garcia·Jeffrey E. McClintock
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Abstract

The defining characteristic of a black hole is that it possesses an event horizon through which matter and energy can fall in but from which nothing escapes. Soft X-ray transients (SXTs), a class of X-ray binaries, appear to confirm this fundamental property of black holes. SXTs that are thought to contain accreting black holes display a large variation of luminosity between their bright and faint states, while SXTs with accreting neutron stars have a smaller variation. This difference is predicted if the former stars have horizons and the latter have normal surfaces.

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Ramesh Narayan, Michael R. Garcia, Jeffrey E. McClintock. 1997-01-20. Advection-Dominated Accretion and Black Hole Event Horizons. https://doi.org/10.1086/310554

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