arXiv subjects

Julian H. Krolik

Publications and source records attributed to Julian H. Krolik.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Relativistic Dynamics and Mass Exchange in Binary Black Hole Mini-Disks

We present the first exploration of relativistic gas dynamics in the immediate vicinity of binary black holes as the system inspirals close to merger in the gravitational radiation-driven regime. We focus on 2D hydrodynamical studies of comparable-mass, non-spinning systems. Relativistic effects alter the dynamics of gas in this environment in several ways. Because the gravitational potential between the two black holes becomes shallower than in the Newtonian regime, the mini-disks stretch toward the L1 point and the amount of gas passing back and forth between the mini-disks increases sharply with decreasing binary separation. This "sloshing" is quasi-periodically modulated at $2$ and $2.75$ times the binary orbital frequency, corresponding to timescales of hours to days for supermassive binary black holes. In addition, relativistic effects add an $m=1$ component to the tidally-driven spiral waves in the disks that are purely $m=2$ in Newtonian gravity; this component becomes dominant when the separation is $\lesssim 100$ gravitational radii. Both the sloshing and the spiral waves have the potential to create distinctive radiation features that may uniquely mark supermassive binary black holes in the relativistic regime.

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arXiv2016

How bright are the gaps in circumbinary disk systems?

When a circumbinary disk surrounds a binary whose secondary's mass is at least $\sim 10^{-2}\times$ the primary's mass, a nearly empty cavity with radius a few times the binary separation is carved out of the disk. Narrow streams of material pass from the inner edge of the circumbinary disk into the domain of the binary itself, where they eventually join onto the small disks orbiting the members of the binary. Using data from 3-d MHD simulations of this process, we determine the luminosity of these streams; it is mostly due to weak laminar shocks, and is in general only a few percent of the luminosity of adjacent regions of either the circumbinary disk or the "mini-disks". This luminosity therefore hardly affects the deficit in the thermal continuum predicted on the basis of a perfectly dark gap region.

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arXiv2016

Discovery of transient infrared emission from dust heated by stellar tidal disruption flares

Stars that pass within the Roche radius of a supermassive black hole will be tidally disrupted, yielding a sudden injection of gas close to the black hole horizon which produces an electromagnetic flare. A few dozen of these flares have been discovered in recent years, but current observations provide poor constraints on the bolometric luminosity and total accreted mass of these events. Using images from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), we have discovered transient 3.4 micron emission from several previously known tidal disruption flares. The observations can be explained by dust heated to its sublimation temperature due to the intense radiation of the tidal flare. From the break in the infrared light curve we infer that this hot dust is located ~0.1 pc from the supermassive black hole. Since the dust has been heated by absorbing UV and (potentially) soft X-ray photons of the flare, the reprocessing light curve yields an estimate of the bolometric flare luminosity. For the flare PTF-09ge, we infer that the most likely value of the luminosity integrated over frequencies at which dust can absorb photons is $8\times 10^{44}$ erg/s, with a factor of 3 uncertainty due to the unknown temperature of the dust. This bolometric luminosity is a factor ~10 larger than the observed black body luminosity. Our work is the first to probe dust in the nuclei of non-active galaxies on sub-parsec scales. The observed infrared luminosity implies a covering factor ~1% for the nuclear dust in the host galaxies.

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arXiv2016

Radiation-driven outflows from and radiative support in dusty tori of active galactic nuclei

Substantial evidence points to dusty, geometrically thick tori obscuring the central engines of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), but so far no mechanism satisfactorily explains why cool dust in the torus remains in a puffy geometry. Near-Eddington infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) luminosities coupled with high dust opacities at these frequencies suggest that radiation pressure on dust can play a significant role in shaping the torus. To explore the possible effects of radiation pressure, we perform three-dimensional radiative hydrodynamics simulations of an initially smooth torus. Our code solves the hydrodynamics equations, the time-dependent multi-angle group IR radiative transfer (RT) equation, and the time-independent UV RT equation. We find a highly dynamic situation. IR radiation is anisotropic, leaving primarily through the central hole. The torus inner surface exhibits a break in axisymmetry under the influence of radiation and differential rotation; clumping follows. In addition, UV radiation pressure on dust launches a strong wind along the inner surface; when scaled to realistic AGN parameters, this outflow travels at $\sim 5000 (M/10^7 M_\odot)^{1/4} [L_\mathrm{UV}/(0.1 L_\mathrm E)]^{1/4} \mathrm{km}\,\mathrm s^{-1}$ and carries $\sim 0.1 (M/10^7 M_\odot)^{3/4} [L_\mathrm{UV}/(0.1 L_\mathrm E)]^{3/4} M_\odot\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1}$, where $M$, $L_\mathrm{UV}$, and $L_\mathrm E$ are the mass, UV luminosity, and Eddington luminosity of the central object respectively.

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arXiv2016

Fe K$α$ Profiles from Simulations of Accreting Black Holes

We present first results from a new technique for the prediction of Fe K$α$ profiles directly from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations. Data from a GRMHD simulation are processed by a Monte Carlo global radiation transport code, which determines the X-ray flux irradiating the disk surface and the coronal electron temperature self-consistently. With that irradiating flux and the disk's density structure drawn from the simulation, we determine the reprocessed Fe K$α$ emission from photoionization equilibrium and solution of the radiation transfer equation. We produce maps of the surface brightness of Fe K$α$ emission over the disk surface, which---for our example of a $10 M_\odot$, Schwarzschild black hole accreting at $1\%$ the Eddington value---rises steeply one gravitational radius outside the radius of the innermost stable circular orbit and then falls $\propto r^{-2}$ at larger radii. We explain these features of the Fe K$α$ radial surface brightness profile as consequences of the disk's ionization structure and an extended coronal geometry, respectively. We also present the corresponding Fe K$α$ line profiles as would be seen by distant observers at several inclinations. Both the shapes of the line profiles and the equivalent widths of our predicted K$α$ lines are qualitatively similar to those typically observed from accreting black holes. Most importantly, this work represents a direct link between theory and observation: in a fully self-consistent way, we produce observable results---iron fluorescence line profiles---from the theory of black hole accretion with almost no phenomenological assumptions.

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arXiv2015

Disk Emission from Magneto-hydrodynamic Simulations of Spinning Black Holes

We present the results of a new series of global 3D relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of thin accretion disks around spinning black holes. The disks have aspect ratios of $H/R\sim 0.05$ and spin parameters $a/M=0, 0.5, 0.9$, and $0.99$. Using the ray-tracing code Pandurata, we generate broad-band thermal spectra and polarization signatures from the MHD simulations. We find that the simulated spectra can be well fit with a simple, universal emissivity profile that better reproduces the behavior of the emission from the inner disk, compared to traditional analyses carried out using a Novikov-Thorne thin disk model. Lastly, we show how spectropolarization observations can be used to convincingly break the spin-inclination degeneracy well-known to the continuum fitting method of measuring black hole spin.

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arXiv2015

Star formation in quasar hosts and the origin of radio emission in radio-quiet quasars

Radio emission from radio-quiet quasars may be due to star formation in the quasar host galaxy, to a jet launched by the supermassive black hole, or to relativistic particles accelerated in a wide-angle radiatively-driven outflow. In this paper we examine whether radio emission from radio-quiet quasars is a byproduct of star formation in their hosts. To this end we use infrared spectroscopy and photometry from Spitzer and Herschel to estimate or place upper limits on star formation rates in hosts of ~300 obscured and unobscured quasars at z<1. We find that low-ionization forbidden emission lines such as [NeII] and [NeIII] are likely dominated by quasar ionization and do not provide reliable star formation diagnostics in quasar hosts, while PAH emission features may be suppressed due to the destruction of PAH molecules by the quasar radiation field. While the bolometric luminosities of our sources are dominated by the quasars, the 160 micron fluxes are likely dominated by star formation, but they too should be used with caution. We estimate median star formation rates to be 6-29 Msun/year, with obscured quasars at the high end of this range. This star formation rate is insufficient to explain the observed radio emission from quasars by an order of magnitude, with log(L_radio, observed/L_radio, SF)=0.6-1.3 depending on quasar type and star formation estimator. Although radio-quiet quasars in our sample lie close to the 8-1000 micron infrared / radio correlation characteristic of the star-forming galaxies, both their infrared emission and their radio emission are dominated by the quasar activity, not by the host galaxy.

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arXiv2015

Three Dimensional MHD Simulation of Circumbinary Accretion Disks -2. Net Accretion Rate

When an accretion disk surrounds a binary rotating in the same sense, the binary exerts strong torques on the gas. Analytic work in the 1D approximation indicated that these torques sharply diminish or even eliminate accretion from the disk onto the binary. However, recent 2D and 3D simulational work has shown at most modest diminution. We present new MHD simulations demonstrating that for binaries with mass ratios of 1 and 0.1 there is essentially no difference between the accretion rate at large radius in the disk and the accretion rate onto the binary. To resolve the discrepancy with earlier analytic estimates, we identify the small subset of gas trajectories traveling from the inner edge of the disk to the binary and show how the full accretion rate is concentrated onto them.

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arXiv2015

A Steady-State Alignment Front in an Accretion Disk Subjected to Lense-Thirring Torques

Using only physical mechanisms, i.e., 3D MHD with no phenomenological viscosity, we have simulated the dynamics of a moderately thin accretion disk subject to torques whose radial scaling mimics those produced by lowest-order post-Newtonian gravitomagnetism. In this simulation, we have shown how, in the presence of MHD turbulence, a time-steady transition can be achieved between an inner disk region aligned with the equatorial plane of the central mass's spin and an outer region orbiting in a different plane. The position of the equilibrium orientation transition is determined by a balance between gravitomagnetic torque and warp-induced inward mixing of misaligned angular momentum from the outer disk. If the mixing is interpreted in terms of diffusive transport, the implied diffusion coefficient is ~(0.6--0.8)c_s^2/Omega for sound speed c_s and orbital frequency Omega. This calibration permits estimation of the orientation transition's equilibrium location given the central mass, its spin parameter, and the disk's surface density and scaleheight profiles. However, the alignment front overshoots before settling into an equilibrium, signaling that a diffusive model does not fully represent the time-dependent properties of alignment fronts under these conditions. Because the precessional torque on the disk at the alignment front is always comparable to the rate at which misaligned angular momentum is brought inward to the front by warp-driven radial motions, no break forms between the inner and outer portions of the disk in our simulation. Our results also raise questions about the applicability to MHD warped disks of the traditional distinction between "bending wave" and "diffusive" regimes.

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arXiv2015

Evolution of a Binary Black Hole with a Retrograde Circumbinary Accretion Disk

We consider the evolution of a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) surrounded by a retrograde accretion disk. Assuming the disk is exactly in the binary plane and transfers energy and angular momentum to the binary via direct gas accretion, we calculate the time evolution of the binary's semi-major axis $a$ and eccentricity $e$. Because the gas is predominantly transferred when the binary is at apocenter, we find the eccentricity grows rapidly while maintaining constant $a(1+e)$. After accreting only a fraction of the secondary's mass, the eccentricity grows to nearly unity; from then on, gravitational wave emission dominates the evolution, preserving constant $a(1-e)$. The high-eccentricity waveforms redistribute the peak gravitational wave power from the nHz to $μ$Hz bands, substantially affecting the signal that might be detected with pulsar timing arrays. We also estimate the torque coupling binaries of arbitrary eccentricity with obliquely aligned circumbinary disks. If the outer edge of the disk is not an extremely large multiple of the binary separation, retrograde accretion can drive the binary into the gravitational wave-dominated state before these torques align the binary with the angular momentum of the mass supply.

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arXiv2015

General Relativistic Hydrodynamic Simulation of Accretion Flow from a Stellar Tidal Disruption

We study how the matter dispersed when a supermassive black hole tidally disrupts a star joins an accretion flow. Combining a relativistic hydrodynamic simulation of the stellar disruption with a relativistic hydrodynamics simulation of the tidal debris motion, we track such a system until ~80% of the stellar mass bound to the black hole has settled into an accretion flow. Shocks near the stellar pericenter and also near the apocenter of the most tightly-bound debris dissipate orbital energy, but only enough to make the characteristic radius comparable to the semi-major axis of the most-bound material, not the tidal radius as previously thought. The outer shocks are caused by post-Newtonian effects, both on the stellar orbit during its disruption and on the tidal forces. Accumulation of mass into the accretion flow is non-monotonic and slow, requiring ~3--10x the orbital period of the most tightly-bound tidal streams, while the inflow time for most of the mass may be comparable to or longer than the mass accumulation time. Deflection by shocks does, however, remove enough angular momentum and energy from some mass for it to move inward even before most of the mass is accumulated into the accretion flow. Although the accretion rate rises sharply and then decays roughly as a power-law, its maximum is ~0.1x the previous expectation, and the duration of the peak is ~5x longer than previously predicted. The geometric mean of the black hole mass and stellar mass inferred from a measured event timescale is therefore ~0.2x the value given by classical theory.

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arXiv2014

Convection Causes Enhanced Magnetic Turbulence in Accretion Disks in Outburst

We present the results of local, vertically stratified, radiation MHD shearing box simulations of MRI turbulence appropriate for the hydrogen ionizing regime of dwarf nova and soft X-ray transient outbursts. We incorporate the frequency-integrated opacities and equation of state for this regime, but neglect non-ideal MHD effects and surface irradiation, and do not impose net vertical magnetic flux. We find two stable thermal equilibrium tracks in the effective temperature versus surface mass density plane, in qualitative agreement with the S-curve picture of the standard disk instability model. We find that the large opacity at temperatures near $10^4$K, a corollary of the hydrogen ionization transition, triggers strong, intermittent thermal convection on the upper stable branch. This convection strengthens the magnetic turbulent dynamo and greatly enhances the time-averaged value of the stress to thermal pressure ratio $α$, possibly by generating vertical magnetic field that may seed the axisymmetric magnetorotational instability, and by increasing cooling so that the pressure does not rise in proportion to the turbulent dissipation. These enhanced stress to pressure ratios may alleviate the order of magnitude discrepancy between the $α$-values observationally inferred in the outburst state and those that have been measured from previous local numerical simulations of magnetorotational turbulence that lack net vertical magnetic flux.

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arXiv2014

Observational Signatures of Binary Supermassive Black Holes

Observations indicate that most massive galaxies contain a supermassive black hole, and theoretical studies suggest that when such galaxies have a major merger, the central black holes will form a binary and eventually coalesce. Here we discuss two spectral signatures of such binaries that may help distinguish them from ordinary AGN. These signatures are expected when the mass ratio between the holes is not extreme and the system is fed by a circumbinary disk. One such signature is a notch in the thermal continuum that has been predicted by other authors; we point out that it should be accompanied by a spectral revival at shorter wavelengths and also discuss its dependence on binary properties such as mass, mass ratio, and separation. In particular, we note that the wavelength $λ_n$ at which the notch occurs depends on these three parameters in such a way as to make the number of systems displaying these notches $\propto λ_n^{16/3}$; longer wavelength searches are therefore strongly favored. A second signature, first discussed here, is hard X-ray emission with a Wien-like spectrum at a characteristic temperature $\sim 100$ keV produced by Compton cooling of the shock generated when streams from the circumbinary disk hit the accretion disks around the individual black holes. We investigate the observability of both signatures. The hard X-ray signal may be particularly valuable as it can provide an indicator of black hole merger a few decades in advance of the event.

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arXiv2013

MHD Simulation of a Disk Subjected to Lense-Thirring Precession

When matter orbits around a central mass obliquely with respect to the mass's spin axis, the Lense-Thirring effect causes it to precess at a rate declining sharply with radius. Ever since the work of Bardeen & Petterson (1975), it has been expected that when a fluid fills an orbiting disk, the orbital angular momentum at small radii should then align with the mass's spin. Nearly all previous work has studied this alignment under the assumption that a phenomenological "viscosity" isotropically degrades fluid shears in accretion disks, even though it is now understood that internal stress in flat disks is due to anisotropic MHD turbulence. In this paper we report a pair of matched simulations, one in MHD and one in pure (non-viscous) HD in order to clarify the specific mechanisms of alignment. As in the previous work, we find that disk warps induce radial flows that mix angular momentum of different orientation; however, we also show that the speeds of these flows are generically transonic and are only very weakly influenced by internal stresses other than pressure. In particular, MHD turbulence does not act in a manner consistent with an isotropic viscosity. When MHD effects are present, the disk aligns, first at small radii and then at large; alignment is only partial in the HD case. We identify the specific angular momentum transport mechanisms causing alignment and show how MHD effects permit them to operate more efficiently. Lastly, we relate the speed at which an alignment front propagates outward (in the MHD case) to the rate at which Lense-Thirring torques deliver angular momentum at smaller radii.

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arXiv2013

Alignment of supermassive black hole binary orbits and spins

Recent studies of accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries suggest that much, perhaps most, of the matter eventually accretes onto one hole or the other. If so, then for binaries whose inspiral from ~1 pc to 0.001 - 0.01 pc is driven by interaction with external gas, both the binary orbital axis and the individual black hole spins can be reoriented by angular momentum exchange with this gas. Here we show that, unless the binary mass ratio is far from unity, the spins of the individual holes align with the binary orbital axis in a time few-100 times shorter than the binary orbital axis aligns with the angular momentum direction of the incoming circumbinary gas; the spin of the secondary aligns more rapidly than that of the primary by a factor ~(m_1/m_2)^{1/2}>1. Thus the binary acts as a stabilizing agent, so that for gas-driven systems, the black hole spins are highly likely to be aligned (or counteraligned if retrograde accretion is common) with each other and with the binary orbital axis. This alignment can significantly reduce the recoil speed resulting from subsequent black hole merger.

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arXiv2013

Testing Convergence for Global Accretion Disks

Global disk simulations provide a powerful tool for investigating accretion and the underlying magnetohydrodynamic turbulence driven by the magneto-rotational instability (MRI). Using them to predict accurately quantities such as stress, accretion rate, and surface brightness profile requires that purely numerical effects, arising from both resolution and algorithm, be understood and controlled. We use the flux-conservative Athena code to conduct a series of experiments on disks having a variety of magnetic topologies to determine what constitutes adequate resolution. We develop and apply several resolution metrics: Qz and Qphi, the ratio of the grid zone size to the characteristic MRI wavelength, alpha_mag, the ratio of the Maxwell stress to the magnetic pressure, and the ratio of radial to toroidal magnetic field energy. For the initial conditions considered here, adequate resolution is characterized by Qz > 15, Qphi > 20, alpha_mag = 0.45, and a field energy ratio of 0.2. These values are associated with > 35 zones per scaleheight, a result consistent with shearing box simulations. Numerical algorithm is also important. Use of the HLLE flux solver or second-order interpolation can significantly degrade the effective resolution compared to the HLLD flux solver and third-order interpolation. Resolution at this standard can be achieved only with large numbers of grid zones, arranged in a fashion that matches the symmetries of the problem and the scientific goals of the simulation.

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arXiv2013

X-ray Spectra from MHD Simulations of Accreting Black Holes

We present the results of a new global radiation transport code coupled to a general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic simulation of an accreting, non-rotating black hole. For the first time, we are able to explain from first principles in a self-consistent way all the components seen in the X-ray spectra of stellar-mass black holes, including a thermal peak and all the features associated with strong hard X-ray emission: a power-law extending to high energies, a Compton reflection hump, and a broad iron line. Varying only the mass accretion rate, we are able to reproduce a wide range of X-ray states seen in most galactic black hole sources. The temperature in the corona is T_e ~ 10 keV in a boundary layer near the disk and rises smoothly to T_e >~ 100 keV in low-density regions far above the disk. Even as the disk's reflection edge varies from the horizon out to ~ 6M as the accretion rate decreases, we find that the shape of the Fe Kαline is remarkably constant. This is because photons emitted from the plunging region are strongly beamed into the horizon and never reach the observer. We have also carried out a basic timing analysis of the spectra and find that the fractional variability increases with photon energy and viewer inclination angle, consistent with the coronal hot spot model for X-ray fluctuations.

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arXiv2013

Relaxation of Warped Disks: the Case of Pure Hydrodynamics

Orbiting disks may exhibit bends due to a misalignment between the angular momentum of the inner and outer regions of the disk. We begin a systematic simulational inquiry into the physics of warped disks with the simplest case: the relaxation of an unforced warp under pure fluid dynamics, i.e. with no internal stresses other than Reynolds stress. We focus on the nonlinear regime in which the bend rate is large compared to the disk aspect ratio. When warps are nonlinear, strong radial pressure gradients drive transonic radial motions along the disk's top and bottom surfaces that efficiently mix angular momentum. The resulting nonlinear decay rate of the warp increases with the warp rate and the warp width, but, at least in the parameter regime studied here, is independent of the sound speed. The characteristic magnitude of the associated angular momentum fluxes likewise increases with both the local warp rate and the radial range over which the warp extends; it also increases with increasing sound speed, but more slowly than linearly. The angular momentum fluxes respond to the warp rate after a delay that scales with the square-root of the time for sound waves to cross the radial extent of the warp. These behaviors are at variance with a number of the assumptions commonly used in analytic models to describe linear warp dynamics.

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