Black Hole Accretion Discs

Abstract

This is an introduction to models of accretion discs around black holes. After a presentation of the non-relativistic equations describing the structure and evolution of geometrically thin accretion discs we discuss their steady-state solutions and compare them to observation. Next we describe in detail the thermal-viscous disc instability model and its application to dwarf novae for which it was designed and its X-ray irradiated-disc version which explains the soft X--ray transients, i.e. outbursting black-hole low-mass X-ray binaries. We then turn to the role of advection in accretion flows onto black holes illustrating its action and importance with a toy model describing both ADAFs and slim discs. We conclude with a presentation of the general-relativistic formalism describing accretion discs in the Kerr space-time.