Variability of accretion disks surrounding black holes: The role of inertial-acoustic mode instabilities

The global nonlinear time-dependent evolution of the inertial-acoustic mode instability in accretion disks surrounding black holes has been investigated. The viscous stress is assumed to be proportional to the gas pressure only, i.e.,, $ au = - alpha p_g$. It is found that an oscillatory instability exists in the inner regions of disks ($r < 10 r_g$, where $r_g$ is the Schwarzschild radius) for sufficiently large $alpha$ ($gapprox 0.2$), and for mass accretion rates less than about 0.3 times the Eddington value. The variations of the integrated bolometric luminosity from the disk, $Delta L/L$, are less than 3%. A power spectrum analysis of these variations reveals a power spectrum which can be fit to a power law function of the frequency $P propto f^{-gamma}$, with index $gamma sim 1.4-2.3$ and a low frequency feature at about 4 Hz in one case. In addition, a narrow peak centered at a frequency corresponding to the maximum epicyclic frequency of the disk at $sim 100-130$ Hz and its first harmonic is also seen. The low frequency modulations are remarkably similar to those observed in black hole candidate systems. The possible existence of a scattering corona in the inner region of the disk and/or to other processes contributing to the power at high frequencies in the inner region of the accretion disk may make the detection of the high frequency component difficult.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, June 1994. PS file, 20 Pages; 9 Figs available upon request. Report#123456789