Hot Accretion Flows Around Black Holes

Understand

Black hole accretion flows can be divided into two broad classes: cold and hot.

• Cold accretion flows, which consist of cool optically thick gas, are found at relatively high mass accretion rates.
• Prominent examples are the standard thin disk, which occurs at a fraction of the Eddington mass accretion rate, and the slim disk at super-Eddington rates.
• These accretion flows are responsible for luminous systems such as active galactic nuclei radiating at or close to the Eddington luminosity and black hole X-ray binaries in the soft state.