Aims. During the bright outburst in 2011, the black hole candidate IGR J17091-3624 exhibited strong quasi-periodic flare-like events (on timescales of tens of seconds) in some characteristic states, the so-called heartbeat state. From the theoretical point of view, these oscillations may be modeled by the process of accretion disk instability, driven by the dominant radiation pressure and enhanced heating of the plasma. Although the mean accretion rate in this source is probably below the Eddington limit, the oscillations will still have large amplitudes. As the observations show, the source can exhibit strong wind outflow during the soft state. This wind may help to partially or even completely stabilize the heartbeat. Methods. Using our hydrodynamical code GLADIS, we modeled the evolution of an accretion disk responsible for X-ray emission of the source. We accounted for a variable wind outflow from the disk surface. We examined the data archive from the Chandra and XMM-Newton satellites to find the observed limitations on the wind physical properties, such as its velocity and ionization state. We also investigated the long-term evolution of this source, which lasted over about 600 days of observations, using the data collected by the Swift and RXTE satellites. During this long period, the oscillations pattern and the observable wind properties changed systematically. Results. We found that this source probably exhibits observable outbursts of appropriate timescales and amplitudes as a result of the disk instability. Our model requires a substantial wind component to explain the proper variability pattern, and even complete suppression of flares in some states. The wind mass-loss rate extracted from the data agrees quantitatively well with our scenario.

Aims Black holes (BHs) surrounded by accretion disks are present in the Universe at different scales of masses, from microquasars up to the active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Since the work of Shakura and Sunyaev (1973) and their α-disk model, various prescriptions for the heat-production rate are used to describe the accretion process. The current picture remains ad hoc due the complexity of the magnetic field action. In addition, accretion disks at high Eddington rates can be radiation-pressure dominated and, according to some of the heating prescriptions, thermally unstable. The observational verification of their resulting variability patterns may shed light on both the role of radiation pressure and magnetic fields in the accretion process. Methods We compute the structure and time evolution of an accretion disk, using the code GLADIS (which models the global accretion disk instability). We supplement this model with a modified viscosity prescription, which can to some extent describe the magnetisation of the disk. We study the results for a large grid of models, to cover the whole parameter space, and we derive conclusions separately for different scales of black hole masses, which are characteristic for various types of cosmic sources. We show the dependencies between the flare or outburst duration, its amplitude, and period, on the accretion rate and viscosity scaling. Results We present the results for the three grids of models, designed for different black hole systems (X-ray binaries, intermediate mass black holes, and galaxy centres). We show that if the heating rate in the accretion disk grows more rapidly with the total pressure and temperature, the instability results in longer and sharper flares. In general, we confirm that the disks around the supermassive black holes are more radiation-pressure dominated and present relatively brighter bursts. Our method can also be used as an independent tool for the black hole mass determination, which we confront now for the intermediate black hole in the source HLX-1. We reproduce the light curve of the HLX-1 source. We also compare the duration times of the model flares with the ages and bolometric luminosities of AGNs. Conclusions With our modelling, we justify the modified µ-prescription for the stress tensor τ rφ in the accretion flow in microquasars. The discovery of the Ultraluminous X-ray source HLX-1, claimed to be an intermediate black hole, gives further support to this result. The exact value of the µ parameter, as fitted to the observed light curves, may be treated as a proxy for the magnetic field strength in the accretion flow in particular sources, or their states.

The hyperluminous X-ray source (HLX-1, the peak X-ray luminosity ∼ 10 42 erg s −1 ) near the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49 is possibly the best candidate for intermediate mass black hole (IMBH), which underwent recurrent outbursts with a period of ∼ 400 days. The physical reason for this quasi-periodic variability is still unclear. We explore the possibility of radiation-pressure instability in accretion disk by modeling the light curve of HLX-1, and find that it can roughly reproduce the duration, period and amplitude of the recurrent outbursts HLX-1 with an IMBH of ∼ 10 5 M ⊙ . Our result provides a possible mechanism to explain the recurrent outbursts in HLX-1. We further find a universal correlation between the outburst duration and the bolometric luminosity for the BH sources with a very broad mass range (e.g., X-ray binaries, XRBs, HLX-1 and active galactic nuclei, AGNs), which is roughly consistent with the prediction of radiation-pressure instability of the accretion disk. These results imply that "heartbeat" oscillations triggered by radiation-pressure instability may appears in different-scale BH systems.

Aims. Both the well known microquasar GRS 1915+105, as well as its recently discovered analogue, IGR J17091-3624, exhibit variability that is characteristic of a deterministic chaotic system. Their specific kind of quasi-periodic flares that are observed in some states is intrinsically connected with the global structure of the accretion flow, which are governed by the nonlinear hydrodynamics. One plausible mechanism that is proposed to explain this kind of variability is the thermal-viscous instability that operates in the accretion disk. The purely stochastic variability that occurs because of turbulent conditions in the plasma, is quantified by the power density spectra and appears in practically all types of sources and their spectral states. Methods. We pose a question as to whether these two microquasars are one of a kind, or if the traces of deterministic chaos, and hence the accretion disk instability, may also be hidden in the observed variability of other sources. We focus on the black hole X-ray binaries that accrete at a high rate and are, therefore, theoretically prone to the development of radiation pressure-induced instability. To study the nonlinear behaviour of the X-ray sources and distinguish between the chaotic and stochastic nature of their emission, we propose a novel method, which is based on recurrence analysis. Widely known in other fields of physics, this powerful method is used here for the first time in an astrophysical context. We estimate the indications of deterministic chaos quantitatively, such as the Rényi's entropy for the observed time series, and we compare them with surrogate data. Results. Using the observational data collected by the RXTE satellite, we reveal the oscillations pattern and the observable properties of six black hole systems. For five of them, we confirm the signatures of deterministic chaos being the driver of their observed variability. Conclusions. We test the method and confirm the deterministic nature of variability in the microquasars GRS 1915+105 and IGR J17091-3624. Furthermore, we also find significant traces of nonlinear dynamics in three other sources: GX 339-4, XTE J1550-564 and GRO J1655-40, particularly in the disk-dominated soft state, as well as in the intermediate states at the rising and declining phase of the outburst. Only for the source XTE J1650-500 no observation with such variability pattern was found. This is possibly due to the global accretion rate in this source being too small for the limit-cycle instability to develop.

The thermal stability of accretion disk and the possibility to see a limit-cycle behaviour strongly depends on the ability of the disk plasma to cool down. Various processes connected with radiation-matter interaction appearing in hot accretion disk plasma contribute to opacity. For the case of geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disk, we can estimate the influence of several different components of function κ, given by the Roseland mean. In the case of high temperatures (∼ 10 7 ) K, the electron Thomson scattering is dominant. At lower temperatures atomic processes become important. The slope d log κ/d log T can have locally stabilizing or destabilizing effect on the disk. Although the local MHD simulation postulate the stabilizing influence of the atomic processes, only the global time-dependent model can reveal the global disk stability range estimation. This is due to global diffusive nature of that processes. In this paper, using previously tested GLADIS code with modified prescription of the viscous dissipation, we examine the stabilizing effect of the Iron Opacity Bump.

Context. Some accreting black holes exhibit much stronger variability patterns than the usual stochastic variations. Radiation pressure instability is one of the proposed mechanisms that might account for this effect. Aims. We model luminosity changes for objects with a black hole mass of 10, 105, and 107 solar masses, using the time-dependent evolution of an accretion disk that is unstable as a result of the dominant radiation pressure. We concentrate on the outburst timescales. We explore the influence of the hot coronal flow above the cold disk, the inner purely hot flow, and the effect of the magnetic field on the time evolution of the disk-corona system. For intermediate-mass black holes and active galactic nuclei, we also explore the role of the disk outer radius because a disk that is fed by tidal disruption events (TDE) can be quite small. Methods. We used a 1D vertically integrated time-dependent numerical scheme that models the simultaneous evolution of the disk and corona, which is coupled by the vertical mass exchange. We parameterized the strength of the large-scale toroidal magnetic fields according to a local accretion rate. We also discuss a possible inner optically thin flow, the advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF). This flow would require modification of the inner boundary condition of the cold disk flow. For the set of the global parameters, we calculated the variability timescales and outburst amplitudes of the disk and the corona. Results. We found that the role of the inner ADAF and the accreting corona are relatively unimportant, but the outburst character strongly depends on the magnetic field and on the outer radius of the disk if this radius is smaller (due to the TDE phenomenon) than the size of the instability zone in a stationary disk with infinite radius. For microquasars, the dependence on the magnetic field is monotonic, and the period decreases with the field strength. For higher black hole masses, the dependence is nonmonotonic, and an initial rise of the period is later replaced with a relatively rapid decrease as the magnetic field continues to rise. A still stronger magnetic field stabilizes the disk. When we assumed a smaller disk outer radiusfor 105 and 107 M⊙, the outbursts were shorter and led to complex multiscale outbursts for some parameters, thus approaching the behavior of deterministic chaos. Conclusions. Our computations confirm that the radiation pressure instability model can account for heartbeat states in microquasars. The rapid variability detected in intermediate-mass black holes in the form of quasi-periodic eruptions can be consistent with the model, but only when it is combined with the TDE phenomenon. The yearly repeating variability in changing-look active galactic nuclei in our model also requires a small outer radius either due to the recent TDE or due to the gap in the disk that is related to a secondary black hole.

Abstract. Hardly any of the observed black hole accretion disks in X-

Apart from regular, low-level stochastic variability, some active galactic nuclei (AGN) occasionally show exceptionally large changes in the luminosity, spectral shape, and/or X-ray absorption. The most notable are the changes of the spectral type when the source classified as a Seyfert 1 becomes a Seyfert 2 galaxy or vice versa. Thus, a name was coined of "changing-look AGN" (CL AGN). The origin of this phenomenon is still unknown, but for most of the sources, there are strong arguments in favor of the intrinsic changes. Understanding the nature of such rapid changes is a challenge to the models of black hole accretion flows since the timescales of the changes are much shorter than the standard disk viscous timescales. We aim to model the CL AGN phenomenon assuming that the underlying mechanism is the time-dependent evolution of a black hole accretion disk unstable due to the dominant radiation pressure. We use a one-dimensional, vertically integrated disk model, but we allow for the presence of the hot coronal layer above the disk and the presence of the inner purely hot flow. We focus on the variability timescales and amplitudes, which can be regulated by the action of large-scale magnetic fields, the description of the disk-corona coupling and the presence of an inner optically thin flow, like advection-dominated accretion flow. We compare model predictions for the accretion disk around black hole mass 10 7 M ⊙ .