The locality of transport in self-gravitating accretion discs

Details The locality of transport in self-gravitating accretion discs The locality of transport in self-gravitating accretion discs

2004-03-08

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0403185v1

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 351 (2004) 630

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

15 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07811.x

In this paper we examine the issue of characterising the transport associated with gravitational instabilities in relatively cold discs, discussing in particular the conditions under which it can be described within a local, viscous framework. We present the results of global, three-dimensional, SPH simulations of self-gravitating accretion discs, in which the disc is cooled using a simple parametrisation for the cooling function. Our simulations show that the disc settles in a ``self-regulated'' state, where the axisymmetric stability parameter $Q\approx 1$ and where transport and energy dissipation are dominated by self-gravity. We have computed the gravitational stress tensor and compared our results with expectations based on a local theory of transport. We find that, as long as the disc mass is smaller than $0.25M_{\star}$ and the aspect ratio $H/R\lesssim 0.1$, transport is determined locally, thus allowing for a viscous treatment of the disc evolution.

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