Foundations of Black Hole Accretion Disk Theory

TL;DR

This comprehensive review explores the fundamental theories, models, and observational signatures of black hole accretion disks, emphasizing their role in understanding black hole properties and related astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It systematically reviews the main accretion disk models, their stability, oscillations, jets, and numerical studies, providing a unified overview of the field.

Findings

Identification of key signatures of strong gravity in accretion disks

Comparison of different accretion disk models and their stability

Applications to black hole mass, spin measurements, and QPOs

Abstract

This review covers the main aspects of black hole accretion disk theory. We begin with the view that one of the main goals of the theory is to better understand the nature of black holes themselves. In this light we discuss how accretion disks might reveal some of the unique signatures of strong gravity: the event horizon, the innermost stable circular orbit, and the ergosphere. We then review, from a first-principles perspective, the physical processes at play in accretion disks. This leads us to the four primary accretion disk models that we review: Polish doughnuts (thick disks), Shakura-Sunyaev (thin) disks, slim disks, and advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs). After presenting the models we discuss issues of stability, oscillations, and jets. Following our review of the analytic work, we take a parallel approach in reviewing numerical studies of black hole accretion disks. We finish with a few select applications that highlight particular astrophysical applications: measurements of black hole mass and spin, black hole vs. neutron star accretion disks, black hole accretion disk spectral states, and quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs).