Counter-rotating Accretion Disks

Details Counter-rotating Accretion Disks Counter-rotating Accretion Disks

1996-04-30

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9604183v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

7 pages, 3 figures, aas2pp4.sty, submitted to ApJ

Scientific paper

10.1086/310232

We consider accretion disks consisting of counter-rotating gaseous components with an intervening shear layer. Configurations of this type may arise from the accretion of newly supplied counter-rotating gas onto an existing co-rotating gas disk. For simplicity we consider the case where the gas well above the disk midplane is rotating with angular rate $+\Omega$ and that well below has the same properties but is rotating with rate $-\Omega$. Using the Shakura-Sunyaev alpha turbulence model, we find self-similar solutions where a thin (relative to the full disk thickness) equatorial layer accretes very rapidly, essentially at free-fall speed. As a result the accretion speed is much larger than it would be for an alpha disk rotating in one direction. Counter-rotating accretion disks may be a transient stage in the formation of counter-rotating galaxies and in the accretion of matter onto compact objects.

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