Warp propagation in astrophysical discs

Abstract

Astrophysical discs are often warped, that is, their orbital planes change with radius. This occurs whenever there is a non-axisymmetric force acting on the disc, for example the Lense-Thirring precession induced by a misaligned spinning black hole, or the gravitational pull of a misaligned companion. Such misalignments appear to be generic in astrophysics. The wide range of systems that can harbour warped discs - protostars, X-ray binaries, tidal disruption events, quasars and others - allows for a rich variety in the disc's response. Here we review the basic physics of warped discs and its implications.

To be published in Astrophysical Black Holes by Haardt et al., Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer 2015. 19 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (5)

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• Observational signatures of linear warps in circumbinary discs
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• Simplified models of circumstellar morphologies for interpreting high-resolution data. Analytical approach to the equatorial density enhancement
• A study of a tilted thin inner accretion disk around a spinning black hole
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• Effect of accreting tidally disrupted stars on the spin evolution of $\sim 10^6{M}_{\odot }$ black holes
• Alignment and precession of a black hole misaligned with its accretion disc: Application to Low Mass X-ray Binaries
• Fast nodal precession of the disc around Pleione requires a broken disc
• Excitation of post-AGB Star Binary Eccentricity by Massive Polar-Aligned Circumbinary Disks
• Partial alignment between jets and megamasers: Coherent versus selective accretion
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• Disc breaking and parametric instability in warped accretion discs
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