Disk Emission from Magneto-hydrodynamic Simulations of Spinning Black Holes

Understand

We present the results of a new series of global 3D relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of thin accretion disks around spinning black holes.

• The disks have aspect ratios of $H/R\sim 0.05$ and spin parameters $a/M=0, 0.5, 0.9$, and $0.99$.
• Using the ray-tracing code Pandurata, we generate broad-band thermal spectra and polarization signatures from the MHD simulations.
• We find that the simulated spectra can be well fit with a simple, universal emissivity profile that better reproduces the behavior of the emission from the inner disk, compared to traditional analyses carried out using a Novikov-Thorne thin disk model.