Influence of self-gravity on the runaway instability of black hole-torus systems

Abstract

Results from the first fully general relativistic numerical simulations in axisymmetry of a system formed by a black hole surrounded by a self-gravitating torus in equilibrium are presented, aiming to assess the influence of the torus self-gravity on the onset of the runaway instability. We consider several models with varying torus-to-black hole mass ratio and angular momentum distribution orbiting in equilibrium around a non-rotating black hole. The tori are perturbed to induce the mass transfer towards the black hole. Our numerical simulations show that all models exhibit a persistent phase of axisymmetric oscillations around their equilibria for several dynamical timescales without the appearance of the runaway instability, indicating that the self-gravity of the torus does not play a critical role favoring the onset of the instability, at least during the first few dynamical timescales.

To appear on Phys.Rev.Lett

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• Von Zeipel's theorem for a magnetized circular flow around a compact object
• Self-gravitating magnetised tori around black holes in general relativity
• Papaloizou-Pringle Instability of Magnetized Accretion Tori
• Rigidly rotating, incompressible spheroid-ring systems: new bifurcations, critical rotations and degenerate states