Effective sound speed in relativistic accretion discs around rotating black holes

Abstract

For axially symmetric accretion maintained in the hydrostatic equilibrium along the vertical direction in the Kerr metric, the radial Mach number does not become unity at the critical point. The sonic points are, thus, formed at a radial distance different from that where the critical points are formed. We propose that a modified dynamical sound speed can be defined through the linear perturbation of the full space-time dependent equations describing the aforementioned accretion flow structure. The linear stability analysis of such fluid equations leads to the formation of an wave equation which describes the propagation of linear acoustic perturbation. The speed of propagation of such perturbation can be used as the effective sound speed which makes the value of the Mach number to be unity when evaluated at the critical points. This allows the critical points to coalesce with the sonic points. We study how the spin angular momentum of the black hole (the Kerr parameter) influences the value of the effective sound speed