THE outflows accelerated by the magnetic fields and radiation force of accretion disks

Abstract

The inner region of a luminous accretion disk is radiation-pressure- dominated. We estimate the surface temperature of a radiation-pressure-dominated accretion disk, , which is significantly lower than that of a gas-pressure-dominated disk, Θ ∼ (H/r)2. This means that the outflow can be launched magnetically from the photosphere of the radiation-pressure-dominated disk only if the effective potential barrier along the magnetic field line is extremely shallow or no potential barrier is present. For the latter case, the slow sonic point in the outflow will probably be in the disk, which leads to a slow circular dense flow above the disk. This implies that hot gas (probably in the corona) is necessary for launching an outflow from the radiation-pressure-dominated disk, which provides a natural explanation for the observational evidence that the relativistic jets are related to hot plasma in some X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. We investigate the outflows accelerated from the hot corona above the disk by the magnetic field and radiation force of the accretion disk. We find that with the help of the radiation force, the mass loss rate in the outflow is high, which leads to a slow outflow. This may be why the jets in radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert galaxies are in general mildly relativistic compared with those in blazars. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..