GSN 069 is a recently discovered quasi-periodic eruption (QPE) source recurring about every 9 hr. The mechanism for the QPEs of GSN 069 is still unclear. In this work, a disk instability model is constructed to explain GSN 069 based on Pan et al. (PLC21), where the authors proposed a toy model for the repeating changing-look active galactic nuclei. We improve the work of PLC21 by including a nonzero viscous torque condition on the inner boundary of the disk and adopting a general form for the viscous stress torque in the Kerr metric. It is found that the 0.4–2 keV light curves, the light curves at different energy bands, and the phase-resolved X-ray spectrum of GSN 069 can all be qualitatively reproduced by our model. Furthermore, the profiles of light curves in QPEs can be significantly changed by the parameter μ in the viscous torque equation, which implies that our model may also be applied to other QPEs.

Periodic outbursts are observed in several changing-look (CL) active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Sniegowska et al. suggested a model to explain the repeating CL in these AGNs, where the periodic outbursts are triggered in a narrow unstable zone between an inner advection-dominated accretion flow and outer thin disk. In this work, we intend to investigate the effects of large-scale magnetic fields on the limit cycle behaviors of CL AGNs. The winds driven by magnetic fields can significantly change the structure of thin disk by taking away the angular momentum and energy of the disk. It is found that the period of outburst in repeating CL AGNs can be substantially reduced by the magnetic fields. Conversely, if we keep the period unchanged, the outburst intensity can be raised by several times. These results can help to explain the observational properties of multiple CL AGNs. Besides the magnetic fields, the effects of transition radius , the width of the transition zone ΔR, and the Shakura–Sunyaev parameter α are also explored in this work.

After the first quasiperiodic eruption (QPE; GSN 069) was reported in 2019, four other sources have been identified as a QPE or a candidate. However, the physics behind QPEs is still unclear, although several models have been proposed. Pan et al. proposed an instability model for an accretion disk with magnetically driven outflows in the first QPE of GSN 069, which is able to reproduce both the light curve and the evolution of the spectra fairly well. In this work, we extend this model to all QPEs. We improve the calculations of the spectrum of the disk by introducing a hardening factor, which is caused by a deviation of opacity from a blackbody. We find that the light curves and evolution of the spectra of the four QPEs and candidates can all be well reproduced by our model calculations.