Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
I will briefly review recent progress in our understanding of the global propagation of accretion disk instabilities operating in interacting binary systems in which the accreting star is a ~ 10 M⊙ black hole. A detailed discussion of this work can be found in Cannizzo, Chen & Livio (1995).
The X-ray light curves of the brightest and best studied X-ray novae – systems such as A0620–00, GS2000+25, GS1124–68, and GRO J0422+32 – are notable in two respects: the rise times are fast (a few days) and the decays have an exponential character, where the e–folding time constant is about 30 to 40 d (Mineshige, Yamasaki, & Ishizaka 1993, hereafter MYI). It is noteworthy that outbursts in dwarf novae also decay exponentially, with the time constant being about a factor of 10 shorter. In this contribution I will discuss the constraints on the physics of accretion disks which the (observed) exponential decay enables us to make.