Long-term evolution of supercritical black hole accretion with outflows: a subgrid feedback model for cosmological simulations

TL;DR

This study investigates the long-term behavior of supercritical black hole accretion flows, revealing how outflows and radiative processes influence accretion rates and providing a subgrid feedback model for cosmological simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation of super-Eddington accretion flows over long timescales and develops a subgrid feedback model for use in large-scale cosmological simulations.

Findings

Accretion flow becomes adiabatic with turbulent gas and bipolar outflows.

Mass inflow rate decreases with radius as r^{p} with p~0.5-0.7.

Super-Eddington accretion requires high gas supply from large radii.

Abstract

We study the long-term evolution of the global structure of axisymmetric accretion flows onto a black hole (BH) at rates substantially higher than the Eddington value ($\dot{M}_{\rm Edd}$), performing two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations with and without radiative diffusion. In the high-accretion optically-thick limit, where the radiation energy is efficiently trapped within the inflow, the accretion flow becomes adiabatic and comprises of turbulent gas in the equatorial region and strong bipolar outflows. As a result, the mass inflow rate decreases toward the center as $\dot{M}_{\rm in}\propto r^{p}$ with $p\sim 0.5-0.7$ and a small fraction of the inflowing gas feeds the nuclear BH. Thus, super-Eddington accretion is sustained only when a larger amount of gas is supplied from larger radii at $> 100-1000~\dot{M}_{\rm Edd}$. The global structure of the flow settles down to a quasi-steady state in millions of the orbital timescale at the BH event horizon, which is $> 10-100$ times longer than that addressed in previous (magneto-)RHD simulation studies. Energy transport via radiative diffusion accelerates the outflow near the poles in the inner region but does not change the overall properties of the accretion flow compared to the cases without diffusion. Based on our simulation results, we provide a mechanical feedback model for super-Eddington accreting BHs. This can be applied as a sub-grid model in large-scale cosmological simulations that do not sufficiently resolve galactic nuclei, and to the formation of the heaviest gravitational-wave sources via accretion in dense environments.