Tuesday, June 11, 2013

1306.1871 (Xiao-Hong Yang et al.)

Two dimensional numerical simulations of Supercritical Accretion Flows revisited    [PDF]

Xiao-Hong Yang, Feng Yuan, Ken Ohsuga, De-Fu Bu
We study the dynamics of super-Eddington accretion flows by performing two-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulations. Compared to previous works, in this paper we include the $T_{\theta\phi}$ component of the viscous stress and consider various values of viscous parameter $\alpha$. We find that when $T_{\theta\phi}$ is included, the rotational speed of the high-latitude flow decreases; while the density increases and decreases at the high- and low-latitudes, respectively. We calculate the radial profiles of inflow and outflow rates. We find that the inflow rate decreases inward, following a power-law form of $\dot{M}_{\rm in}\propto r^s$. The value of $s$ depends on the magnitude of $\alpha$ and is within the range of $\sim 0.4-1.0$. Correspondingly, the radial profile of density becomes flatter compared to the case of a constant $\dot{M}(r)$. We find that the density profile can be described by $\rho(r)\propto r^{-p}$, and the value of $p$ is almost same for a wide range of $\alpha$ ranging from $\alpha=0.1$ to 0.005. The inward decrease of inflow accretion rate is very similar to hot accretion flows, which is attributed to the mass loss in outflows. To study the origin of outflow, we analyze the convective stability of slim disk. We find that depending on the value of $\alpha$, the flow is marginally stable (when $\alpha$ is small) or unstable (when $\alpha$ is large). This is different from the case of hydrodynamical hot accretion flow where radiation is dynamically unimportant and the flow is always convectively unstable. We speculate that the reason for the difference is because radiation can stabilize convection. The origin of outflow is thus likely because of the joint function of convection and radiation, but further investigation is required.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.1871

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