Limits on luminosity and mass accretion rate of a radiation pressure dominated accretion disc

TL;DR

This paper investigates the limits of luminosity and mass accretion rates in radiation pressure dominated accretion discs, highlighting how outflows regulate luminosity and influence observable properties of black hole systems.

Contribution

It introduces a model showing outflows driven by radiation force limit disc luminosity and alter spectral features, especially at high accretion rates.

Findings

Outflows occur when accretion rate exceeds Eddington rate.

Disc luminosity scales with ln(md) at high md.

Spectra saturate at high frequencies for md>2.

Abstract

There is a maximum for the gravity of a black hole in the vertical direction in the accretion disc. Outflows may probably be driven from the disc if the radiation flux of the disc is greater than a critical value corresponding to the maximal vertical gravity. We find that outflows are driven by the radiation force from the disc if the accretion rate is greater than the Eddington rate. The radiation of the disc is therefore limited by such outflows. The disc luminosity, L=L_Edd\propto ln mdot, at large-mdot cases. The Eddington ratio of the disc is ~3 for mdot~100, which is significantly lower than that of a conventional slim disc without outflows. This implies that the emission from some ultra-luminous X-ray sources with highly super Eddington luminosity should be Doppler beamed, or intermediate mass black holes are in these sources instead of stellar mass black holes. The spectra of the discs with outflows are saturated in the high frequency end provided mdot>2. We suggest that the saturated emission can be observed to estimate the masses of the black holes accreting at high rates, such as the narrow-line Seyfert galaxies, with the model calculations. The rate of the mass accreted by the black hole is always around the Eddington rate even if the mass accretion rate at the outer radius is very high, because most of the gas is removed into the outflows. This implies that the luminous quasars at high redshifts z>6 should have grown up through persistent accretion at a rate close to the Eddington rate.