Friday, October 16, 2015

October 26, 2015 12:00PM BPB-207. Yan-Fei Jiang. Iron Opacity Bump Changes the Structure and Stability of Black Hole Accretion Disks in AGNs.

In the standard thin accretion disk model, electron scattering is usually thought to be the dominant opacity in the radiation pressure dominated inner region of black hole accretion disks. I will show that this is not the case for most AGNs, where the density and temperature ranges in the accretion disks are similar as in the envelopes of massive stars and opacity bump caused by Irons are much more important. Through a series of self-consistent radiation MHD simulations, I will show that the iron opacity bump can significant decrease the growth rate of thermal instability in the standard thin accretion disk model compared to case with dominated electron scattering opacity. It can even stabilize the disk. Viscous instability also does not exist for AGN disks with iron opacity bump. I will also discuss implications of the iron opacity bump on resolving various puzzles between standard thin disk models and observations.