title: Influence of self-gravity on the runaway instability of black-hole-torus systems.
abstract: Results from the first fully general relativistic numerical simulations in axisymmetry of a system formed by a black hole surrounded by a self-gravitating torus in equilibrium are presented, aiming to assess the influence of the torus self-gravity on the onset of the runaway instability. We consider several models with varying torus-to-black-hole mass ratio and angular momentum distribution orbiting in equilibrium around a nonrotating black hole. The tori are perturbed to induce the mass transfer towards the black hole. Our numerical simulations show that all models exhibit a persistent phase of axisymmetric oscillations around their equilibria for several dynamical time scales without the appearance of the runaway instability, indicating that the self-gravity of the torus does not play a critical role favoring the onset of the instability, at least during the first few dynamical time scales.
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institute für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 1, 81748, Garching bei München, Germany.
authors.forename: Pedro J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Montero
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Font
authors.forename: Masaru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shibata