Abstract
The runaway instability (very fast, ‘catastrophic’, mass exchange) operates in close binaries when the more massive star overflows its Roche lobe1,2. The Roche lobe radius shrinks due to the mass exchange more rapidly than the radius of the star. The star keeps overflowing its Roche lobe and continuously loses mass. It has been found3 that a critical equipotential surface similar to the Roche lobe also exists in the black hole accretion disk system. The existence of this lobe is not connected with the gravity of the disk but is due to general relativistic effects in the gravitational field of the black hole alone. We argue here that all the accretion disks which overflow their Roche lobes and have their masses greater than a few per cent of the mass of the central hole are unstable with respect to runaway instability. This may be very important for quasars and other active galactic nuclei.
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Abramowicz, M., Calvani, M. & Nobili, L. Runaway instability in accretion disks orbiting black holes. Nature 302, 597–599 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/302597a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/302597a0
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