Simulating ULXs and blazars as GRMHD accretion flows around a black hole

TL;DR

This paper uses GRMHD simulations to model accretion flows around black holes, explaining the high luminosities of ULXs and the spectral differences between blazar classes based on magnetic and spin properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates that magnetized accretion flows can account for ULX luminosities and explains blazar class dichotomy through magnetic field, spin, and accretion rate interactions.

Findings

ULXs can be explained by highly magnetized advective accretion flows.

Simulation results match observed ULX luminosities.

Differences between FSRQs and BL Lacs are due to magnetic field and black hole spin.

Abstract

General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations have been instrumental in our understanding of high energy astrophysical phenomena over the past two decades. Their robustness and modularity make them a great tool for understanding the dynamics of various astrophysical objects. In this paper we have used GRMHD simulations to understand the accretion flows of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) and blazars. ULXs are enigmatic sources which exhibit very high luminosities (super-Eddington for stellar mass black holes) even in their low-hard state. Numerical steady state calculations have shown that this behaviour can be explained by considering ULXs to be highly magnetised advective accretion sources around stellar-mass black holes. Our simulation confirms that such an accretion flow can indeed produce the high luminosities observed in ULXs. Further to continue towards the supermassive black holes, we have also modeled blazars and have used our simulation results to explain the apparent dichotomy in the two blazar classes: flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL Lacertae (BL Lacs). Our results show that FSRQ and BL Lacs show different spectral characteristics due to a difference in their magnetic field characteristics. The different categories of FSRQs and BL Lacs have also been explained by the interplay between the spin, magnetic field and accretion rate of the central supermassive black hole.