Abstract
Accretion onto black holes powers most luminous compact sources in the Universe. Black holes are found with masses extending over an extraordinary broad dynamic range, from several to a few billion times the mass of the Sun. Depending on their position on the mass scale, they may manifest themselves as X-ray binaries or active galactic nuclei. X-ray binaries harbor stellar mass black holes—endpoints of the evolution of massive stars. They have been studied by X-ray astronomy since its inception in the early 60-ies, however, the enigma of the most luminous of them—ultra-luminous X-ray sources, still remains unsolved. Supermassive black holes, lurking at the centers of galaxies, are up to hundreds of millions times more massive and give rise to the wide variety of different phenomena collectively termed “Active Galactic Nuclei”. The most luminous of them reach the Eddington luminosity limit for a few billions solar masses object and are found at redshifts as high as z≥5–7. Accretion onto supermassive black holes in AGN and stellar- and (possibly) intermediate mass black holes in X-ray binaries and ultra-luminous X-ray sources in star-forming galaxies can explain most, if not all, of the observed brightness of the cosmic X-ray background radiation. Despite the vast difference in the mass scale, accretion in X-ray binaries and AGN is governed by the same physical laws, so a degree of quantitative analogy among them is expected. Indeed, all luminous black holes are successfully described by the standard Shakura-Sunyaev theory of accretion disks, while the output of low-luminosity accreting black holes in the form of mechanical and radiative power of the associated jets obeys to a unified scaling relation, termed as the “fundamental plane of black holes”. From that standpoint, in this review we discuss formation of radiation in X-ray binaries and AGN, emphasizing their main similarities and differences, and examine our current knowledge of the demographics of stellar mass and supermassive black holes.
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Notes
The Eddington luminosity is defined as L Edd=4πGM BH m p c/σ T≃1.3×1038(M BH/M ⊙) ergs s−1, where G is the Newton constant, m p is the proton mass, c the speed of light and σ T the Thomson scattering cross section. Throughout this review we will also use the Eddington ratio defined as λ≡L/L Edd.
A thorough discussion of the role played by jets and outflows is presented by S. Heinz elsewhere in this issue.
Considerations of a similar kind involving the neutron star surface can explain the fact that the neutron star spectra are typically softer than those of black holes (e.g. Sunyaev and Titarchuk 1989).
A uniform stationary corona above the accretion disk can still, in principle, be responsible for the steep power law component often detected in the soft state, although a non-thermal electron distribution may be a more plausible explanation.
We use Salpeter IMF to be consistent with the definition of star-formation rate, see discussion in Mineo et al. (2012) for details.
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Acknowledgements
We thank M. Falanga and the organizers of the ISSI Workshop “The physics of accretion onto black holes”, where this work was initiated. We also thank R. Gilli, R. Hickox, B. Lehmer, E. Lusso, S. Mineo, M. Volonteri for useful discussions. A.M. research was partly supported by the DFG cluster of excellence “Origin and Structure of the Universe” (www.universe-cluster.de).
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Gilfanov, M., Merloni, A. Observational Appearance of Black Holes in X-Ray Binaries and AGN. Space Sci Rev 183, 121–148 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-014-0071-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-014-0071-5