Ringed accretion disks: instabilities

Abstract

We analyze the possibility that several instability points may be formed, due to the Paczy\'nski mechanism of violation of mechanical equilibrium, in the orbiting matter around a supermassive Kerr black hole. We consider recently proposed model of ringed accretion disk, made up by several tori (rings) which can be corotating or counterrotating relative to the Kerr attractor due to the history of the accretion process. Each torus is governed by the general relativistic hydrodynamic Boyer condition of equilibrium configurations of rotating perfect fluids. We prove that the number of the instability points is generally limited and depends on the dimensionless spin of the rotating attractor.