Quasars vs. Microquasars: Scaling and Particle Acceleration

Quasars and microquasars both contain accreting black holes and power nonthermal radio sources but differ in more than their scales: Quasars are proportionally much more efficient accelerators of energetic electrons. The radio luminosity of the double radio sources associated with quasars, reflecting the long-time average of the particle acceleration power, is often 1-30 ≲ 10^-5. This may be explained by the scaling of accretion disc parameters with the black hole mass.