New Paradigms For Black Hole Accretion From High-Resolution Supercomputer Experiments
J. F. Hawley and L. Smarr, in American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings 144: Magnetospheric Phenomena in Astrophysics, 263-290, ed. R. I. Epstein and W. C. Feldman (American Institute of Physics: New York) (1986).
Abstract
From a series of high-resolution supercomputer calculations, new paradigms emerge for black hole accretion with angular momentum. We have discovered that the centrifugal barrier, or funnel wall, plays a key role in shock heating the supersonic fluid, producing a stationary thick disk with bipolar outflow. The infall dynamics are calculated in detail and followed until a steady state is reached. We delineate a number of distinct regimes of steady state flow in the two-parameter solution space defined by the fluid’s angular momentum and the disk thickness. The essential physics is highlighted with selected numerical examples. the same code can calculate general relativistic magnetohydrodynamical flows near black holes.