Inertial-Acoustic Oscillations of Black-Hole Accretion Discs with Large-Scale Poloidal Magnetic Fields

Abstract

We study the effect of large-scale magnetic fields on the non-axisymmetric inertial-acoustic modes (also called p-modes) trapped in the innermost regions of accretion discs around black holes (BHs). These global modes could provide an explanation for the high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HFQPOs) observed in BH X-ray binaries. There may be observational evidence for the presence of such large-scale magnetic fields in the disks since episodic jets are observed in the same spectral state when HFQPOs are detected. We find that a large-scale poloidal magnetic field can enhance the corotational instability and increase the growth rate of the purely hydrodynamic overstable p-modes. In addition, we show that the frequencies of these overstable p-modes could be further reduced by such magnetic fields, making them agree better with observations.

7 pages, 5 figures. Revised according to referee's report. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1212.1219