Advection-dominated Accretion and Black Hole Event Horizons
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Narayan, Ramesh
Garcia, Michael R.
McClintock, Jeffrey E.
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https://doi.org/10.1086/310554Metadata
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Narayan, Ramesh, Michael R. Garcia, and Jeffrey E. McClintock. 1997. “Advection-Dominated Accretion and Black Hole Event Horizons.” The Astrophysical Journal 478 (2): L79–82. https://doi.org/10.1086/310554.Abstract
The defining characteristic of a black hole is that it possesses an event horizon through which matter and energy can fall in but from which nothing escapes. Soft X-ray transients (SXTs), a class of X-ray binaries, appear to confirm this fundamental property of black holes. SXTs that are thought to contain accreting black holes display a large variation of luminosity between their bright and their faint states, while SXTs with accreting neutron stars have a smaller variation. This difference is predicted if the former stars have horizons, and the latter have normal surfaces.Terms of Use
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