Mass accretion rate as a function of accretor size. Both axes are normalized by the Hoyle & Lyttleton (1939) accretion rate and radius. The dashed horizontal line at Ṁ/Ṁ_HL = 1 represents the Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion rate, derived from Eq. (5), the solid blue line the Ruffert (1994b) result Ṁ/Ṁ_HL = 0.446, according to their Eq. (12) for γ = 5/3 ⇒ β = 5/9, and the red line the geometrical accretion rate according to Eqs. (6) and (15). The results are presented for simulations conducted with two different Mach numbers, denoted as ℳ_∞.