GRAVITATIONAL DRAG ON A POINT MASS IN HYPERSONIC MOTION WITHIN A GAUSSIAN DISK

We develop an analytical model for the accretion and gravitational drag on a point mass that moves hypersonically in the midplane of a gaseous disk with a Gaussian vertical density stratification. Such a model is of interest for studying the interaction between a planet and a protoplanetary disk, as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Astrophysical journal Vol. 762; no. 1; pp. 1 - 9
Main Authors Canto, J, Esquivel, A, Sanchez-Salcedo, F J, Raga, A C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.01.2013
Subjects
ACCELERATION
Accretion
Accretion disks
ASTRONOMY
ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BLACK HOLES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DENSITY
Drag
GALAXY NUCLEI
Gravitation
HYDRODYNAMICS
Hypersonic flow
MASS
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical models
PLANETS
PROTOPLANETS
STAR EVOLUTION
STAR MODELS
STARS
STRATIFICATION
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
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Summary:We develop an analytical model for the accretion and gravitational drag on a point mass that moves hypersonically in the midplane of a gaseous disk with a Gaussian vertical density stratification. Such a model is of interest for studying the interaction between a planet and a protoplanetary disk, as well as the dynamical decay of massive black holes in galactic nuclei. The model assumes that the flow is ballistic, and gives fully analytical expressions for both the accretion rate onto the point mass and the gravitational drag it suffers. The expressions are further simplified by taking the limits of a thick and of a thin disk. The results for the thick disk reduce correctly to those for a uniform density environment. We find that for a thin disk (small vertical scaleheight compared to the gravitational radius), the accretion rate is proportional to the mass of the moving object and to the surface density of the disk, while the drag force is independent of the velocity of the object. The gravitational deceleration of the hypersonic perturber in a thin disk was found to be independent of its parameters (i.e., mass or velocity) and depends only on the surface mass density of the disk. The predictions of the model are compared to the results of three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, with reasonable agreement.
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ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/762/1/21