Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2003-06-23
Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.344:1085,2003
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
7 pages. Minor changes made in the version published in MNRAS
Scientific paper
10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06992.x
The influence of viscosity on the flow behaviour in spherically symmetric accretion, has been studied here. The governing equation chosen has been the Navier-Stokes equation. It has been found that at least for the transonic solution, viscosity acts as a mechanism that detracts from the effectiveness of gravity. This has been conjectured to set up a limiting scale of length for gravity to bring about accretion, and the physical interpretation of such a length-scale has been compared with the conventional understanding of the so-called "accretion radius" for spherically symmetric accretion. For a perturbative presence of viscosity, it has also been pointed out that the critical points for inflows and outflows are not identical, which is a consequence of the fact that under the Navier-Stokes prescription, there is a breakdown of the invariance of the stationary inflow and outflow solutions -- an invariance that holds good under inviscid conditions. For inflows, the critical point gets shifted deeper within the gravitational potential well. Finally, a linear stability analysis of the stationary inflow solutions, under the influence of a perturbation that is in the nature of a standing wave, has indicated that the presence of viscosity induces greater stability in the system, than has been seen for the case of inviscid spherically symmetric inflows.
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