A Phase Lag between Disk and Corona in GRMHD Simulations of Precessing Tilted Accretion Disks

Abstract

In the course of its evolution, a black hole (BH) accretes gas from a wide range of directions. Given a random accretion event, the typical angular momentum of an accretion disc would be tilted by $\sim$60${}^{\circ }$ relative to the BH spin. Misalignment causes the disc to precess at a rate that increases with BH spin and tilt angle. We present the first general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations spanning a full precession period of highly tilted (60${}^{\circ }$), moderately thin ($h/r=0.1$) accretion discs around a rapidly spinning ($a\simeq 0.9$) BH. While the disc and jets precess in phase, we find that the corona, sandwiched between the two, lags behind by $\gtrsim 10^{\circ }$. For spectral models of BH accretion, the implication is that hard non-thermal (corona) emission lags behind the softer (disc) emission, thus potentially explaining some properties of the hard energy lags seen in Type-C low frequency quasi-periodic oscillations in X-Ray binaries. While strong jets are unaffected by this disc-corona lag, weak jets stall when encountering the lagging corona at distances $r\sim 100$ black hole radii. This interaction may quench large-scale jet formation.

6 pages, 4 figures, Accepted in New Astronomy, see YouTube playlist for 3D renderings: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDO1oeU33GwmwOV_Hp9s7572JdU8JPSSK

References in corpus (11)

• Global General Relativistic MHD Simulation of a Tilted Black-Hole Accretion Disk
• On the Bardeen-Petterson Effect in black hole accretion discs
• Inclination dependence of QPO phase lags in black hole X-ray binaries
• Disc Tearing and Bardeen-Petterson Alignment in GRMHD Simulations of Highly Tilted Thin Accretion Discs
• H-AMR: A New GPU-accelerated GRMHD Code for Exascale Computing With 3D Adaptive Mesh Refinement and Local Adaptive Time-stepping
• Formation of Magnetically Truncated Accretion Disks in 3D Radiation-Transport Two-Temperature GRMHD Simulations
• Epicyclic Motions and Standing Shocks in Numerically Simulated Tilted Black-Hole Accretion Disks
• Tilted Disks around Black Holes: A Numerical Parameter Survey for Spin and Inclination Angle
• Is the Bardeen-Petterson effect responsible for the warping and precession in NGC 4258?
• Radiation Transport Two-Temperature GRMHD Simulations of Warped Accretion Disks
• Nozzle Shocks, Disk Tearing and Streamers Drive Rapid Accretion in 3D GRMHD Simulations of Warped Thin Disks

Cited by in corpus (10)

• A unified accretion disc model for supermassive black holes in galaxy formation simulations: method and implementation
• A detailed view of low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillation in the broadband 0.2-200 keV with Insight-HXMT and NICER
• Misaligned magnetized accretion flows onto spinning black holes: Magneto-spin alignment, outflow power, and intermittent jets
• Wavelet spectral timing: X-ray reverberation from a dynamic black hole corona hidden beneath ultrafast outflows
• The Luminous, Hard State Can't Be MAD
• Evidence for a dynamic corona in the short-term time lags of black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070
• Tilted Accretion Disks
• Diverse Emission Patterns from Precessing Super-Eddington Disks Formed in Tidal Disruption Events
• The Discovery of an Active Wind from the Milky Way's Black Hole
• General Grad-Shafranov Equation