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Session 76 - Cataclysmic Variables and Accretion Disks.
Display session, Wednesday, January 15
Metropolitan Ballroom,
We review the relativistic results for ``diskoseismic" modes of oscillation which are trapped within thin accretion disks by non-Newtonian gravitational properties of a black hole. In particular, we will present results for both ``g-modes", which are the rough analogue of (internal) gravity modes in stars and are expected to be the most robust and observable class of modes, and acoustic ``p-modes", including the most recent investigations of the latter which may exist in a large region of the disk which extends to the outer boundary. The most definitive property of the g-modes is that the resulting eigenfrequencies depend almost entirely upon only the mass and angular momentum of the black hole. Such a feature has recently been detected by RXTE in the power spectrum of the luminosity modulations of the BHC GRS 1915+105. With a frequency of 67 Hz, this feature remained stable in frequency despite appreciable luminosity fluctuations. We consider the possibility that this feature can be attributed to a g-mode in an accretion disk about a 10.6 M_ødot (non-rotating) - 36.3 M_ødot (maximally rotating) black hole.
