Spinning up black holes with super-critical accretion flows

Abstract

We study the process of spinning up black holes by accretion from slim disks for a wide range of accretion rates. We show that for super-Eddington accretion rates and low values of the viscosity parameter α (≲0.01) the limiting value of the dimensionless spin parameter a- can reach values higher than a*= 0.9978 inferred by Thorne in his seminal study. For = 10 Edd and α = 0.01, spin equilibrium is reached at a â̂- = 0.9994. We show that the equilibrium spin value depends strongly on the assumed value of α. We also prove that for high accretion rates the impact of captured radiation on spin evolution is negligible. © 2011 ESO.