Quasi-Spherical, Time-Dependent Viscous Accretion Flow: One-Dimensional Results

TL;DR

This paper models one-dimensional, viscous, quasi-spherical accretion flows around black holes, revealing shock stability, oscillations, and potential links to observed low-frequency QPOs.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamics code that accurately simulates viscous, transonic accretion flows with shocks, including the development of inner shocks and oscillatory behavior.

Findings

Stable shocks at large distances for low viscosity.

Shock oscillations increase with higher viscosity.

Inner shocks form due to outer shock expansion and angular momentum transfer.

Abstract

We investigated the instability of advective accretion flow as a consequence of angular momentum transfer in one-dimensional, quasi-spherical transonic accretion flow around a non-rotating black hole. The code is designed to include the effects of viscosity; the hydrodynamics component preserves angular momentum strictly with Lagrangian and remap method in absence of viscosity, while the viscosity component updates viscous angular momentum transfer through the implicit method. We performed two tests to demonstrate the suitability of the code for accretion study. First, we simulated the inviscid, low angular momentum, transonic accretion flow with shocks around a black hole, and then the subsonic, self-similar ADAF solution around a Newtonian object. Both simulations fitted the corresponding analytical curves extremely well. We then simulated a rotating, viscous, transonic fluid with shocks. We showed that for low viscosity parameter, stable shocks at larger distance are possible. For higher viscosity parameter, more efficient angular momentum transfer in the post-shock disk makes the shock structure oscillatory. Moreover, as the shock drifts to larger distances, a secondary inner shock develops. We showed that the inner shock is the direct consequence of expansion of the outer shock, as well as creation of regions with $\partial l / \partial r < 0$ due to more efficient angular momentum transfer near the inner sonic point. We showed that all disk parameters, including emissivity, oscillate with the same period as that of the shock oscillation. Our simulation may have implication for low frequency QPOs, e.g., GRO J1655-40 and XTE J1550-564.