  On the basis of data from an energy-conserving 3D general relativistic MHD
simulation, we predict the statistical character of variability in the coronal
luminosity from accreting black holes. When the inner boundary of the corona is
defined to be the electron scattering photosphere, its location depends only on
the mass accretion rate in Eddington units (\dot{M}). Nearly independent of
viewing angle and \dot{M}, the power spectrum over the range of frequencies
from approximately the orbital frequency at the innermost stable circular orbit
(ISCO) to ~100 times lower is well approximated by a power-law with index -2,
crudely consistent with the observed power spectra of hard X-ray fluctuations
in AGN and the hard states of Galactic binary black holes. The underlying
physical driver for variability in the light curve is variations in the
accretion rate caused by the chaotic character of MHD turbulence, but the power
spectrum of the coronal light output is significantly steeper. Part of this
contrast is due to the fact that the mass accretion rate can be significantly
modulated by radial epicyclic motions that do not result in dissipation, and
therefore do not drive luminosity fluctuations. The other part of this contrast
is due to the inward decrease of the characteristic inflow time, which leads to
decreasing radial coherence length with increasing fluctuation frequency.
