Abstract
We investigate the unsteady column accretion of material at a rate \(10^{15} g s^{ - 1} \leqslant \dot M \leqslant 10^{16} g s^{ - 1}\) onto the surface of a magnetized neutron star using a modified first-order Godunov method with splitting. We study the dynamics of the formation and evolution of a shock in an accretion column near the surface of a star with a magnetic field 5×1011≤B≤1013 G. An effective transformation of the accretion flow energy into cyclotron radiation is shown to be possible for unsteady accretion with a collisionless shock whose front executes damped oscillations. The collisionless deceleration of the accreting material admits the conservation of a fraction of the heavy nuclei that have not been destroyed in spallation reactions. The fraction of the CNO nuclei that reach the stellar atmosphere is shown to depend on the magnetic field strength of the star.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
F. A. Aharonian and R. A. Sunyaev, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 210, 257 (1984).
J. Arons, R. I. Klein, and S. M. Lea, Astrophys. J. 312, 666 (1987).
M. M. Basko and R. A. Sunyaev, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 175, 395 (1976).
V. B. Berestetskii, E. M. Lifshits, and L. P. Pitaevskii, Quantum Electrodynamics, 2nd ed. (Nauka, Moscow, 1980; Pergamon, Oxford, 1982).
L. Bildsten, E. E. Salpeter, and I. Wasserman, Astrophys. J. 384, 143 (1992 ).
G. S. Bisnovatyi-Kogan and A. M. Fridman, Astron. Zh. 46, 721 (1969) [Sov. Astron. 13, 566 (1970)].
A. Braun and R. Z. Yahel, Astrophys. J. 278, 349 (1984).
R. W. Bussard, Astrophys. J. 237, 970 (1980).
K. Davidson and J. P. Ostriker, Astrophys. J. 179, 585 (1973).
J. Frank, A. King, and D. J. Raine, Accretion Power in Astrophysics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002).
C. W. Gear, Numerical Initial Value Problems in Ordinary Differential Equations (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1971).
S. K. Godunov, Mat. Sb. 47, 271 (1959).
S. K. Godunov, A. V. Zabrodin, M. Ya. Ivanov, et al., Numerical Integration of Multidimensional Gas-Dynamic Problems (Nauka, Moscow, 1976) [in Russian].
S. De Groot, W. van Leeuwen, and Ch. van Weert, Relativistic Kinetic Theory (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1980; Mir, Moscow, 1983).
E. Haug, Z. Naturforsch. 30, 1099 (1975).
A. C. Hindmarsh, ODEPACK: A Systematized Collection of ODE Solvers, Scientific Computing, Ed. by R. S. Stepleman et al. (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1983), p. 55.
R. I. Klein and J. Arons, in Proceedings of the 23rd ESLAB Symposium on Two-Topics in X-ray Astronomy, Ed. by N. White (ESA, Noordwijk, 1989), p. 89.
R. I. Klein, J. Arons, J. Garrett, and J. J.-L. Hsu, Astrophys. J. 457, L85 (1996).
S. H. Langer, Phys. Rev. D 23, 328 (1981).
S. H. Langer and S. Rappoport, Astrophys. J. 257, 733 (1982).
R. J. Le Veque, J. Comput. Phys. 131, 327 (1997).
W. H. G. Lewin, J. van Paradijs, and R. E. Taam, Space Sci. Rev. 62, 223 (1993).
W. H. Press, B. P. Flannery, S. A. Teukolsky, and W. T. Vetterling, Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN 77: The Art of Scientific Computing (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993).
S. M. Read and V. E. Viola, At. Data Nucl. Data Tables 31, 359 (1984).
E. E. Salpeter, Astrophys. J. 140, 796 (1964).
N. I. Shakura and R. A. Sunyaev, Astron. Astrophys. 24, 337 (1973).
S. L. Shapiro and E. E. Salpeter, Astrophys. J. 198, 671 (1975).
A. L. Velikovich and M. A. Liberman, Physics of Shock Waves in Gases and Plasma (Nauka, Moscow, 1987) [in Russian].
A. V. Zabrodin and G. P. Prokopov, Vopr. At. Nauki Tekh., Ser.: Mat. Model. Fiz. Prots. 3, 3 (1998).
Ya. B. Zel’dovich, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 155, 67 (1964) [Sov. Phys. Dokl. 9, 195 (1964)].
Ya. B. Zel’dovich, IAU Meeting XIII (Prague, 1967).
Ya. B. Zel’dovich and N. I. Shakura, Astron. Zh. 46, 225 (1969) [Sov. Astron. 13, 175 (1969)].
V. V. Zheleznyakov, Radiation in Astrophysical Plasma (Yanus-K, Moscow, 1997) [in Russian].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
__________
Translated from Pis’ma v Astronomicheski\(\overset{\lower0.5em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\smile}$}}{l}\) Zhurnal, Vol. 30, No. 5, 2004, pp. 351–361.
Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by Bykov, Krasil’shchikov.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bykov, A.M., Krasil’shchikov, A.M. Dynamics of the flows accreting onto a magnetized neutron star. Astron. Lett. 30, 309–318 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1134/1.1738153
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/1.1738153