Standing Shocks in Magnetized Dissipative Accretion Flow around Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper investigates the structure of magnetized, optically thin, advection-dominated accretion flows around Schwarzschild black holes, revealing how shocks form due to centrifugal barriers and depend on flow parameters like magnetic fields and cooling.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of shock formation in magnetized accretion flows, highlighting the influence of magnetic fields, viscosity, and cooling on shock properties and flow dynamics.

Findings

Shock waves form due to centrifugal barriers in magnetized flows.

Flow parameters like magnetic field strength and cooling rate affect shock properties.

Accretion flows can develop shocks within a range of boundary conditions.

Abstract

We explore the global structure of the accretion flow around a Schwarzschild black hole where the accretion disc is threaded by toroidal magnetic fields. The accretion flow is optically thin and advection dominated. Synchrotron radiation is considered to be the active cooling mechanism in the flow. With this, we obtain the global transonic accretion solutions and show that centrifugal barrier in the rotating magnetized accretion flow causes a discontinuous transition of the flow variables in the form of shock waves. The shock properties and the dynamics of the post-shock corona are affected by the flow parameters such as viscosity, cooling rate and strength of the magnetic fields. The shock properties are investigated against these flow parameters. We further show that for given set of boundary parameters at the outer edge of the disc, accretion flow around a black hole admits shock when the flow parameters are tuned for a considerable range.