Supercritical Accretion of Stellar-mass Compact Objects in Active Galactic Nuclei

Accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have been proposed as promising sites for producing both (stellar-mass) compact object mergers and extreme mass ratio inspirals. Along with disk-assisted migration, ambient gas inevitably accretes onto compact objects. In previous studies, it was commonly assumed that either an Eddington rate or a Bondi rate takes place, although they can differ by several orders of magnitude. As a result, the mass and spin evolution of compact objects within AGN disks are essentially unknown. In this work, we construct a relativistic supercritical inflow–outflow model for black hole (BH) accretion. We show that the radiation efficiency of the supercritical accretion of a stellar-mass BH (sBH) is generally too low to explain the proposed electromagnetic counterpart of GW 190521. Applying this model to sBHs embedded in AGN disks, we find that, although the gas inflow rates at Bondi radii of these sBHs are commonly highly super-Eddington, a large fraction of inflowing gas eventually escapes as outflows so that only a small fraction accretes onto the sBH, resulting in mildly super-Eddington BH absorption in most cases. We also apply this model to neutron stars (NSs) and white dwarfs (WDs) in AGN disks. It turns out to be difficult for WDs to grow to the Chandrasekhar limit via accretion because WDs are spun up more efficiently to reach the shedding limit before the Chandrasekhar limit. For NSs accretion-induced collapse is possible if NS magnetic fields are sufficiently strong to keep the NS slowly rotating during accretion.

Constraining Soft and Hard X-Ray Irradiation in Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources

Most ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are argued to be powered by supercritical accretion onto compact objects. One of the key questions regarding these objects is whether or not the hard X-rays are geometrically beamed toward the symmetric axis. We propose testing the scenario using disk irradiation to see how much the outer accretion disk sees the central hard X-rays. We collect a sample of 11 bright ULXs with an identification of a unique optical counterpart, and model their optical fluxes considering two irradiating sources: soft X-rays from the photosphere of the optically thick wind driven by supercritical accretion, and if needed in addition, hard X-rays from the Comptonization component. Our results indicate that the soft X-ray irradiation can account for the optical emission in the majority of ULXs, and the fraction of hard X-rays reprocessed on the outer disk is constrained to be no more than ∼10−2 in general. Such an upper limit is well consistent with the irradiation fraction expected in the case of no beaming. Therefore, no stringent constraint on the beaming effect can be placed according to the current data quality.

Super-Eddington accretion in the Q2237+0305 quasar?

The interband time lags between the flux variations of the Q2237+0305 quasar have been determined from light curves in the Johnson-Cousins V, R, and I spectral bands. The values of the time lags for filter pairs R − V, I − R, and I − V are significantly higher than those predicted by the standard accretion disk model by Shakura and Sunyaev. To explain the discrepancy, the idea of a supercritical accretion regime in quasars considered in 1973 by Shakura and Sunyaev is applied. This regime has been shown by them to cause an extended scattering envelope around the accretion disk. The envelope efficiently scatters and re-emits the radiation from the accretion disk and thus increases the apparent disk size. We made use of analytical expressions for the envelope radius and temperature derived by Shakura and Sunyaev in their analysis of super-Eddington accretion and show that our results are consistent with the existence of such an envelope. The corresponding parameters of the accretion regime were calculated. They provide the radii of the envelope in the V, R, and I spectral bands consistent with the inter-band time lags determined in our work.

A two-sided but significantly beamed jet in the supercritical accretion quasar IRAS F11119+3257

ABSTRACT Highly accreting quasars are quite luminous in the X-ray and optical regimes; while, they tend to become radio quiet and have optically thin radio spectra. Among the known quasars, IRAS F11119+3257 is a supercritical accretion source because it has a bolometric luminosity slightly above the Eddington limit and extremely powerful X-ray outflows. To probe its radio structure, we investigated its radio spectrum between 0.15 and 96.15 GHz and performed very-long-baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations with the European VLBI Network (EVN) at 1.66 and 4.93 GHz. The deep EVN image at 1.66 GHz shows a two-sided jet with a projected separation about 200 pc and a very high flux density ratio of about 290. Together with the best-fitting value of the integrated spectral index of −1.31 ± 0.02 in the optically thin part, we infer that the approaching jet has an intrinsic speed at least 0.57 times of the light speed. This is a new record among the known all kinds of super-Eddington accreting sources and unlikely accelerated by the radiation pressure in a certain models. We propose a scenario in which IRAS F11119+3257 is an unusual compact symmetric object with a small jet viewing angle and a radio spectrum peaking at 0.53 ± 0.06 GHz mainly due to the synchrotron self-absorption.

Switches between accretion structures during flares in 4U 1901+03

ABSTRACT We report on our analysis of the 2019 outburst of the X-ray accreting pulsar 4U 1901+03 observed with Insight-HXMT and NICER. Both spectra and pulse profiles evolve significantly in the decaying phase of the outburst. Dozens of flares are observed throughout the outburst. They are more frequent and brighter at the outburst peak. We find that the flares, which have a duration from tens to hundreds of seconds, are generally brighter than the persistent emission by a factor of ∼1.5. The pulse-profile shape during the flares can be significantly different from that of the persistent emission. In particular, a phase shift is clearly observed in many cases. We interpret these findings as direct evidence of changes of the pulsed beam pattern, due to transitions between the sub- and supercritical accretion regimes on a short time-scale. We also observe that at comparable luminosities the flares’ pulse profiles are rather similar to those of the persistent emission. This indicates that the accretion on the polar cap of the neutron star is mainly determined by the luminosity, i.e. the mass accretion rate.

X-ray binaries with neutron stars at different accretion stages

Different accretion regimes onto magnetized NSs in HMXBs are considered: wind-fed supersonic (Bondi) regime at high accretion rates <math/> g s-1, subsonic settling regime at lower <math/> and supercritical disc accretion during Roche lobe overflow. In wind-fed stage, NSs in HMXBs reach equilibrium spin periods P* proportional to binary orbital period Pb. At supercritical accretion stage, the system may appear as a pulsating ULX. Population synthesis of Galactic HMXBs using standard assumptions on the binary evolution and NS formation is presented. Comparison of the model P* – Pb (the Corbet diagram), P* – Lx and Pb – Lx distributions with those for the observed HMXBs (including Be X-ray binaries) and pulsating ULXs suggests the importance of the reduction of P* in non-circular orbits, explaining the location of Be X-ray binaries in the model Corbet diagram, and the universal parameters of pulsating ULXs depending only on the NS magnetic fields.