Accretion and structure of radiating disks

M. Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Reymonta 4, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
e-mail: mach@th.if.uj.edu.pl

Received: 14 September 2010
Accepted: 19 March 2012

Abstract

We studied a steadily accreting, geometrically thick disk model that selfconsistently takes into account selfgravitation of the polytropic gas, its interaction with the radiation and the mass accretion rate. The accreting mass is injected inward in the vicinity of the central z = 0 plane, where also radiation is assumed to be created. The rest of the disk remains approximately stationary. Only conservation laws are employed and the gas-radiation interaction in the bulk of the disk is described in the thin-gas approximation. We demonstrate that this scheme is numerically viable and yields a structure of the bulk that is influenced by the radiation and (indirectly) by the prescribed mass accretion rate. The obtained disk configurations are typical for environments in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), with the central mass of the order of 10⁷ M_⊙ to 10⁸ M_⊙, quasi-Keplerian rotation curves, disk masses ranging from about 10⁶ M_⊙ to 10⁷ M_⊙, and the luminosity ranging from 10⁶ L_⊙ to 10⁹ L_⊙. These luminosities are much lower than the corresponding Eddington limit.