Thin accretion discs are stabilized by a strong magnetic field

Abstract

By studying three-dimensional, radiative, global simulations of sub-Eddington, geometrically thin (H/R ≈ 0.15) black hole accretion flows we show that thin discs which are dominated by magnetic pressure are stable against thermal instability. Such discs are thicker than predicted by the standard model and show significant amount of dissipation inside the marginally stable orbit. Radiation released in this region, however, does not escape to infinity but is advected into the black hole. We find that the resulting accretion efficiency (5.5 ± 0.5 per cent for the simulated 0.8Edd disc) is very close to the predicted by the standard model (5.7 per cent).