Scaringi, S., Maccarone, T.J., Körding, E. et al. (6 more authors) (2015) Accretion-induced variability links young stellar objects, white dwarfs, and black holes. Science Advances, 1 (9). e1500686. ISSN 2375-2548
Abstract
The central engines of disc-accreting stellar-mass black holes appear to be scaled down versions of the supermassive black holes that power active galactic nuclei. However, if the physics of accretion is universal, it should also be possible to extend this scaling to other types of accreting systems, irrespective of accretor mass, size, or type. We examine new observations, obtained with Kepler/K2 and ULTRACAM, regarding accreting white dwarfs and young stellar objects. Every object in the sample displays the same linear correlation between the brightness of the source and its amplitude of variability (rms-flux relation) and obeys the same quantitative scaling relation as stellar-mass black holes and active galactic nuclei. We also show that the most important parameter in this scaling relation is the physical size of the accreting object. This establishes the universality of accretion physics from proto-stars still in the star-forming process to the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | accretion; black holes; white dwarfs; young-stellar objects; timing; variability; unification |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL ST/M001350/1 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL ST/J001589/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 11 Feb 2020 14:53 |
Last Modified: | 11 Feb 2020 14:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1126/sciadv.1500686 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:156664 |