State Transitions in Black Hole Candidates

As described in the review by Marek Abramowicz (these proceedings), accretion theory is at something of a crossroads. Many theoretical descriptions of observations have centered on the hydrodynamic'' approach of the standard’’ Shakura & Sunyaev alpha-disk; however, recent MHD simulations of (non-radiative) accretion flow have called into question the validity of this approach. There has been a great deal of optimism that these simulations give direct insight into current observations as similar phenomena appear in both; e.g., jets, rapid high-amplitude fluctuations, etc. In comparison to real data from black hole candidates (BHC), however, these similarities are in many ways only superficial. In some aspects, simple theories agree with the observations quite well. The observed rapid variability is much more highly structured than found in simulations, and shows interesting correlations with spectra that have been interpreted in terms of simple models. On the other hand, debates have arisen over even the most basic phenomenological issues concerning, e.g., the geometry and dominant radiation mechanisms of the accretion flow. In this article I present my views of those observational properties of BHC states that most urgently need to be addressed, and I briefly discuss some of the models currently being debated.