Disc tearing: implications for black hole accretion and AGN variability

Abstract: Accretion discs around black holes power some of the most luminous objects in the Universe. Discs that are misaligned to the black hole spin can become warped over time by Lense-Thirring precession. Recent work has shown that strongly warped discs can become unstable, causing the disc to break into discrete rings producing a more dynamic and variable accretion flow. In a companion paper, we present numerical simulations of this instability and the resulting dynamics. In this paper, we discuss the implications of this dynamics for accreting black hole systems, with particular focus on the variability of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). We discuss the timescales on which variability might manifest, and the impact of the observer orientation with respect to the black hole spin axis. When the disc warp is unstable near the inner edge of the disc, we find quasi periodic behaviour of the inner disc which may explain the recent quasi periodic eruptions observed in, for example, the Seyfert 2 galaxy GSN 069 and in the galactic nucleus of RX J1301.9+2747. These eruptions are thought to be similar to the `heartbeat' modes observed in some X-ray binaries (e.g. GRS 1915+105 and IGR J17091-3624). When the instability manifests at larger radii in the disc, we find that the central accretion rate can vary on timescales that may be commensurate with, e.g., changing-look AGN. We therefore suggest that some of the variability properties of accreting black hole systems may be explained by the disc being significantly warped, leading to disc tearing.