Numerical Simulations of Standing Shocks in Accretion Flows around Black Holes: A Comparative Study (original) (raw)
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Simulation of thick accretion disks with standing shocks by smoothed particle hydrodynamics
Arxiv preprint astro-ph/ …, 1993
We present results of numerical simulation of inviscid thick accretion disks and wind flows around black holes. We use Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique for this purpose. Formation of thick disks are found to be preceded by shock waves travelling away from the centrifugal barrier. For a large range of the parameter space, the travelling shock settles at a distance close to the location obtained by a one-and-a-half dimensional model of inviscid accretion disks. Occasionally, it is observed that accretion processes are aided by the formation of oblique shock waves, particularly in the initial transient phase. The post-shock region (where infall velocity suddenly becomes very small) resembles that of the usual model of thick accretion disk discussed in the literature, though they have considerable turbulence. The flow subsequently becomes supersonic before falling into the black hole. In a large number of cases which we simulate, we find the formation of strong winds which are hot and subsonic when originated from the disk surface very close to the black hole but become supersonic within a few tens of the Schwarzschild radius of the blackhole. In the case of accretion of high angular momentum flow, very little amount of matter is accreted directly onto the black hole. Most of the matter is, however, first squeezed to a small volume close to the black hole, and subsequently expands and is expelled as a strong wind. It is quite possible that this expulsion of matter and the formation of cosmic radio jets is aided by the shock heating in the inner parts of the accretion disks.
Simulations of Viscous Accretion Flow Around Black Holes in a Two-Dimensional Cylindrical Geometry
The Astrophysical Journal
We simulate shock-free and shocked viscous accretion flow onto a black hole in a two dimensional cylindrical geometry, where initial conditions were chosen from analytical solutions. The simulation code used the Lagrangian Total Variation Diminishing (LTVD) and remap routine, which enabled us to attain high accuracy in capturing shocks and to handle the angular momentum distribution correctly. Inviscid shock-free accretion disk solution produced a thick disk structure, while the viscous shock-free solution attained a Bondi-like structure, but in either case, no jet activity nor any QPO-like activity developed. The steady state shocked solution in the inviscid, as well as, in the viscous regime, matched theoretical predictions well. However, increasing viscosity renders the accretion shock unstable. Large amplitude shock oscillation is accompanied by intermittent, transient inner multiple shocks. Such oscillation of the inner part of disk is interpreted as the source of QPO in hard X-rays observed in micro-quasars. Strong shock oscillation induces strong episodic jet emission. The jets also showed existence of shocks, which are produced as one shell hits the preceding one. The periodicity of jets and shock oscillation were similar. The jets for higher viscosity parameter are evidently stronger and faster.
Smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations of viscous accretion discs around black holes
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1998
Viscous Keplerian discs become sub-Keplerian close to a black hole since they pass through sonic points before entering into it. We study the time evolution of polytropic viscous accretion discs (both in one and two dimensional flows) using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics. We discover that for a large region of the parameter space, when the flow viscosity parameter is less than a critical value, standing shock waves are formed. If the viscosity is very high then the shock disappears. In the intermediate viscosity the disc oscillates very significantly in viscous time-scale. Our simulations indicate that these centrifugally supported high density region close to a black hole plays an active role in the flow dynamics, and consequently, the radiation dynamics.
The Astrophysical Journal, 2008
We study the stability of standing shock waves in advection-dominated accretion flows into a Schwarzschild black hole by 2D general relativistic hydrodynamic simulations as well as linear analysis in the equatorial plane. We demonstrate that the accretion shock is stable against axisymmetric perturbations but becomes unstable to non-axisymmetric perturbations. The results of dynamical simulations show good agreement with linear analysis on the stability, oscillation and growing time scales. The comparison of different wave-travel times with the growth time scales of the instability suggests that the instability is likely to be of the Papaloizou-Pringle type, induced by the repeated propagations of acoustic waves. However, the wavelengths of perturbations are too long to clearly define the reflection point. By analyzing the non-linear phase in the dynamical simulations, it is shown that quadratic mode couplings precede the non-linear saturation. It is also found that not only short-term random fluctuations by turbulent motions but also quasi periodic oscillations take place on longer time scales in the non-linear phase. We give some possible implications of the instability for quasi periodic oscillations (QPOs) and the central engine for gamma ray bursts (GRBs).
Monthly Notices of the …, 2010
We study the accretion processes on a black hole by numerical simulation. We use a grid based finite difference code for this purpose. We scan the pa- rameter space spanned by the specific energy and the angular momentum and compare the time-dependent solutions with those obtained from theoretical considerations. We found several important results (a) The time dependent flow behaves close to a constant height model flow in the pre-shock region and a flow with vertical equilibrium in the post-shock region. (c) The infall time scale in the post-shock region is several times higher than the free-fall time scale. (b) There are two discontinuities in the flow, one being just outside of the inner sonic point. Turbulence plays a major role in determining the loca- tions of these discontinuities. (d) The two discontinuities oscillate with two different frequencies and behave as a coupled harmonic oscillator. A Fourier analysis of the variation of the outer shock location indicates higher power at the lower frequency and lower power at the higher frequency. The opposite is true when the analysis of the inner shock is made. These behaviours will have implications in the spectral and timing properties of black hole candidates.
We self-consistently study the properties of the dissipative standing shock waves in an accrertion flow around a stationary black hole. We use analytical method to achieve our goal and identify an effective area in the parameter space spanned by the specific energy and the specific an-gular momentum which allows accretion flow to pass through shock hav-ing some energy dissipation. As the dissipation is increased, the parameter space is reduced and finally disappears when the dissipation is reached its critical value. We show the variation of shock location and compression ratio as a function of the specific energy and study them in terms of energy dissipation across the shock.
Generalized Shock Solutions for Hydrodynamic Black Hole Accretion
The Astrophysical Journal, 2002
For the first time, all available pseudo-Schwarzschild potentials are exhaustively used to investigate the possibility of shock formation in hydrodynamic, invicid, black hole accretion discs. It is shown that a significant region of parameter space spanned by important accretion parameters allows shock formation for flow in all potentials used in this work. This leads to the conclusion that the standing shocks are essential ingredients in accretion discs around non-rotating black holes in general. Using a complete general relativistic framework, equations governing multi-transonic black hole accretion and wind are also formulated and solved in the Schwarzschild metric. Shock solutions for accretion flow in various pseudo potentials are then compared with such general relativistic solutions to identify which potential is the best approximation of Schwarzschild space-time as far as the question of shock formation in black hole accretion discs is concerned.
Hydrodynamic Simulation of Two Component Advective Flows around Black Holes
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), Oxford University Press & Wiley-Blackwell, Volume 430, Issue 4, pp 2836-2843, 2013
We carry out a series of numerical simulations of viscous accretion flows having a reasonable spatial distribution of the viscosity parameter. We add the power-law cooling throughout the flow. We show that, in agreement with the theoretical solutions of viscous transonic flows, matter having the viscosity parameter above a critical value becomes a Keplerian disk while matter having lesser viscosity remains a low angular momentum, sub-Keplerian flow. The latter component produces centrifugal pressure supported shock waves. Thus, for instance, a flow having sufficiently high viscosity on the equatorial plane and low viscosity above and below, would produce a Two Component Advective Flow (TCAF) where a Keplerian disk is surrounded by a rapidly infalling sub-Keplerian halo. We find that the post- shock region of the relatively cooler Keplerian disk is evaporated and the overall configuration is quite stable. This agrees with the theoretical model with two components which attempt to explain the spectral and timing properties of black hole candidates.
Hydrodynamic simulations of viscous accretion flows around black holes
2011
We carry out a time dependent numerical simulation where both the hydrodynamics and the radiative transfer are coupled together. We consider a two-component accretion flow in which the Keplerian disk is immersed inside an accreting low angular momentum flow (halo) around a black hole. The injected soft photons from the Keplerian disk are reprocessed by the electrons in the halo. We show that in presence of an axisymmetric soft-photon source, the spherically symmetric Bondi flow losses its symmetry and becomes axisymmetric. The low angular momentum flow was observed to slow down close to the axis and formed a centrifugal barrier which added new features into the spectrum. Using the Monte Carlo method, we generated the radiated spectra as functions of the accretion rates. We find that the transitions from a hard state to a soft state is determined by the mass accretion rates of the disk and the halo. We separate out the signature of the bulk motion Comptonization and discuss its significance. We study how the net spectrum is contributed by photons suffering different number of scatterings and spending different amounts of time inside the Compton cloud. We study the directional dependence of the emitted spectrum as well.