Hydrodynamical simulations of the triggering of nuclear activities by minor mergers of galaxies

Major mergers of galaxies are considered to be an efficient way to trigger Active Galactic Nuclei and are thought to be responsible for the phenomenon of quasars. This has however recently been challenged by observations of a large number of low luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei at low redshift(z■1) without obvious major merger signatures. Minor mergers are frequently proposed to explain the existence of these Active Galactic Nuclei. In this paper, we perform nine high resolution hydrodynamical simulations of minor galaxy mergers, and investigate whether nuclear activities can be efficiently triggered by minor mergers, by setting various properties for the progenitor galaxies of those mergers. We find that minor galaxy mergers can activate the massive black hole in the primary galaxy with an Eddington ratio of f Edd > 0.01 and> 0.05(or a bolometric luminosity > 10^43 and > 10^44 erg s^-1) with a duration of 2.71 and 0.49 Gyr(or 2.69 and 0.19 Gyr), respectively. The nuclear activity of the primary galaxy strongly depends on the nucleus separation, such that the nucleus is more active as the two nuclei approach each other. Dual Active Galactic Nuclei systems can still possibly be formed by minor mergers of galaxies, though the time duration for dual Active Galactic Nuclei is only ~ 0.011 Gyr and ~ 0.017 Gyr with Eddington ratio of f Edd > 0.05 and bolometric luminosity > 10^44 erg s^-1. This time period is typically shorter than that of dual Active Galactic Nuclei induced by major galaxy mergers.

The kilosecond variability of X-ray sources in nearby galaxies

Chandra observations of 17 nearby galaxies were analyzed and 166 bright sources with X-ray counts 〉 100 were chosen for temporal analysis. Fractional root mean square （rms） variability amplitudes were estimated for light curves, binned at 4 kilosecond （ks）, with length 〈 40 ks. While there are nine ultra-luminous X- ray sources （ULXs） with unabsorbed luminosity （in the 0.3-8.0 keV band） L 〉 1039 erg s-1 in the sample for which the fractional rms variability is constrained to be 〈 10%, only two of them show variability. One of the variable ULXs exhibits a secular transition and has an ultra-soft spectrum with temperature - 0.3 keV while the other is a rapidly varying source in NGC 0628, which has previously been com- pared to the Galactic microquasar GRS 1915＋105. These results seem to indicate that ULXs are typically not highly variable on ks timescales, except for some ultra-soft ones. Among the relatively low luminosity sources （L - 10^38 erg s-1）, we find five of them to be variable. Apart from an earlier known source in NGC 1569, we identify a source in NGC 2403 that exhibits persistent high amplitude fluctuations. In general, the variability of the sources does not seem to be correlated with hardness, which indicates that they may not be due to variations in any absorbing material, but instead could reflect instabilities in the inner accretion disk.

Population synthesis of high mass X-ray binaries

By simulating the evolution of spin periods of magnetized neutron stars which interact with their environment in binary systems,we investigate the Galactic population of high mass X-ray binaries（HMXBs） .The number of HMXBs in the Galaxy is between 190 and 240,and their birthrate is from 5.9×10-5 yr-1 to 6.3× 10-5 yr-1.Comparing the Corbet diagram（the positions of the spin periods vs.the orbital periods of HMXBs） in our model with the associated observations,we find that the stellar wind structure and the process of matter transfer are very important for understanding HMXBs.

A 2.5-dimensional viscous, resistive, advective magnetized accretion-outflow coupling in black hole systems: a higher order polynomial approximation

The correlated and coupled dynamics of accretion and outflow around black holes （BHs） are essentially governed by the fundamental laws of conservation as outflow extracts matter, momentum and energy from the accretion region. Here we analyze a robust form of 2.5-dimensional viscous, resistive, advective magnetized accretion-outflow coupling in BH systems. We solve the complete set of coupled MHD conservation equations self-consistently, through invoking a generalized polynomial expansion in two dimensions. We perform a critical analysis of the accretion-outflow region and provide a complete quasi-analytical family of solutions for advective flows. We obtain the physically plausible outflow solu- tions at high turbulent viscosity parameter a（〉0.3）, and at a reduced scale-height, as magnetic stresses compress or squeeze the flow region. We found that the value of the large-scale poloidal magnetic field Bp is enhanced with the increase of the geometrical thickness of the accretion flow. On the other hand, differential magnetic torque （-r2BBz） increases with the increase in M. Bp, -r2BBz as well as the plasma beta/3p get strongly augmented with the increase in the value of a, enhancing the transport of vertical flux outwards. Our solutions indicate that magnetocentrifugal acceleration plausibly plays a dominant role in effusing out plasma from the radial accretion flow in a moderately advective paradigm which is more centrifugally dominated. However in a strongly advective paradigm it is likely that the thermal pressure gradient would play a more contributory role in the vertical transport of plasma.