Browsing by Subject "Accretion disks"
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Item Collapsar accretion and the gamma-ray burst X-ray light curve(2010-05) Lindner, Christopher Carl; Milosavljević, Miloš; Bromm, Volker; Kumar, Pawan; Sneden, Christopher A.; Wheeler, John C.We present axisymmetric hydrodynamical simulations of the long-term accretion of a rotating gamma-ray burst progenitor star, a "collapsar," onto the central compact object, which we take to be a black hole. The simulations were carried out with the adaptive mesh refinement code FLASH in two spatial dimensions and with an explicit shear viscosity. The evolution of the central accretion rate exhibits phases reminiscent of the long GRB [gamma]-ray and X-ray light curve, which lends support to the proposal by Kumar et al. (2008a,b) that the luminosity is modulated by the central accretion rate. In the first "prompt" phase, the black hole acquires most of its final mass through supersonic quasiradial accretion occurring at a steady rate of [scientific symbols]. After a few tens of seconds, an accretion shock sweeps outward through the star. The formation and outward expansion of the accretion shock is accompanied with a sudden and rapid power-law decline in the central accretion rate Ṁ [proportional to] t⁻²̇⁸, which resembles the L[subscript x] [proportional to] t⁻³ decline observed in the X-ray light curves. The collapsed, shock-heated stellar envelope settles into a thick, low-mass equatorial disk embedded within a massive, pressure-supported atmosphere. After a few hundred seconds, the inflow of low-angular-momentum material in the axial funnel reverses into an outflow from the thick disk. Meanwhile, the rapid decline of the accretion rate slows down, which is potentially suggestive of the "plateau" phase in the X-ray light curve. We complement our adiabatic simulations with an analytical model that takes into account the cooling by neutrino emission and estimate that the duration of the prompt phase can be ~ 20 s. The model suggests that the steep decline in GRB X-ray light curves is triggered by the circularization of the infalling stellar envelope at radii where the virial temperature is below 10¹⁰ K, such that neutrino cooling is inefficient and an outward expansion of the accretion shock becomes imminent; GRBs with longer prompt [gamma]-ray emission should have more slowly rotating envelopes.Item Probing giant-planet forming zones around Solar-like stars with CO(2017-08) Yu, Mo, Ph. D.; Kraus, Adam L.; Evans, Neal J.; Dodson-Robinson, Sarah; Willacy, Karen; Lacy, John; Jaffe, Daniel; Bergin, EdwinProtoplanetary disks are dusty disks around young stars where planets are formed. The evolution and composition of protoplanetary disks determine the time, environments and materials available for planet formation. However fundamental properties of protoplanetary disks such as mass, composition, and the angular momentum transfer mechanism are poorly constrained by observations. In this dissertation, we discuss the thermal and chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks around Solar-type stars, and evaluate methods to measure two key parameters - disk mass and turbulent velocity in the framework of an evolving disk system. We first build a chemical evolution model based on an MRI-active disk around a Solar-type star, and discuss the chemical depletion of CO due to the formation of complex organic molecules (Chapter 2). We then investigate the challenges one faces when measuring disk masses with CO due to the chemical depletion of CO and optical depth effects (Chapter 3). We propose strategies to correct for the CO depletion effect and constrain the disk mass within factor of a few accuracy. We also investigate the possibility of constraining turbulent velocities with CO line profiles in Chapter 4. Peak-to-trough ratios of CO rotational lines have been proposed as a robust probe for turbulent velocity. However we show that the peak-to-trough ratio could vary by $25\%$ due uncertainties in effects of CO depletion. One would underestimate the degree of turbulence if the chemical depletion of CO is not properly accounted for.