Black Hole Winds, Fueled by the Force of Light
This Quicktime movie shows a clumpy, high-velocity stream of a UV-driven particle wind emanating from a black hole accretion disk. The colors represent the density of particles that make up the wind. Yellow is the most dense region, followed by red, green and blue (the least dense). The region along the X axis, the "atmosphere" of the accretion disk, is the most dense region. Particles from the atmosphere can be blown away by UV-radiation and so escape the doom of the black hole.
credit: Daniel Proga
Arrows represent the UV-driven wind of particles around the accretion disk of a black hole. (The black hole is not seen here; the accretion disk lies along the X axis.) A first wind, from the inner regions of the accretion disk, pushes matter up and away from the plane of the accretion disk. But with the black hole's gravity pulling it back and X-ray radiation stripping away electrons, the wind just barely makes it to the middle regions of the accretion disk. As the particles fall back to this middle region, however, they shield the outer region from the X-ray radiation produced very close to the black hole. This shielding in the outer disk allows the gas that is present there to keep their electrons. This non-ionized or partially-ionized gas still has its electron sails needed to catch a UV-induced wind. Without this shield, the wind from the outer disk would suffer the same fate as the inner-disk wind at the hands of gravity and ionizing X-ray radiation. In this image, we see a high-velocity stream of particles fly off the "skin" of a bed of high-density matter (slightly above X axis)
Credit: Daniel Proga
In this image, we see the density of particles that can fly off the accretion disk of a black hole. Yellow represents the highest density, followed by red, green and dark blue (the least dense). Refer to the caption above for the schematics. The most dense region in red along the X axis is the skin of the accretion disk, the source of material for high-velocity winds.
Credit: Daniel Proga
