Periodic mass loss from viscous accretion flows around black holes

Abstract

We investigate the behaviour of low angular momentum viscous accretion flows around black holes using smooth particle hydrodynamics method. Earlier, it has been observed that in a significant part of the energy and angular momentum parameter space, rotating transonic accretion flow undergoes shock transition before entering in to the black hole and a part of the post-shock matter is ejected as bipolar outflows, which are supposed to be the precursor of relativistic jets. In this work, we simulate accretion flows having injection parameters from the inviscid shock parameter space, and study the response of viscosity on them. With the increase of viscosity, shock becomes time dependent and starts to oscillate when the viscosity parameter crosses its critical value. As a result, the in falling matter inside the post-shock region exhibits quasi-periodic variations and causes periodic ejection of matter from the inner disc as outflows. In addition, the same hot and dense post-shock matter emits high energy radiation and the emanating photon flux also modulates quasi-periodically. Assuming a 10 M⊙ black hole, the corresponding power density spectrum peaks at the fundamental frequency of few Hz followed by multiple harmonics. This feature is very common in several outbursting black hole candidates. We discuss the implications of such periodic variations.