Transonic accretion flow in the mini discs of a binary black hole system

Abstract

We study the general relativistic transonic accretion flow around the primary black hole, which forms the circumprimary disc (CPD), within a binary black hole (BBH) system. The BBH spacetime is characterized by the mass ratio ($q$) and the separation distance ($z_2$) between the two black holes. We numerically solve the radial momentum and energy equations to obtain the accretion solutions. It is observed that the CPD can exhibit shock solutions, which exist for a wide range parameter space spanned by flow specific angular momentum ($\lambda$) and energy ($E$). We find that the shock parameter space is modified by $q$ and $z_2$. Investigations show that $q$ and $z_2$ also affect various shock properties, such as density compression and temperature compression across the shock fronts. Moreover, we calculate the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the CPD and examine how the SEDs are modified by $q$ and $z_2$ for both shock-free and shock-induced accretion solutions. SED is found to be nearly independent of the binary parameters. We essentially show that although $q$ and $z_2$ alter the effective horizon area of the primary black hole located at the center of the CPD, they have a minimal impact on the dynamical and spectral properties of the accretion flow around the primary black hole.