On the Origin of Episodic Accretion in Dwarf Novae

1997/10/22 by Charles F. Gammie, Kristen Menou · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Accretion disc #Angular momentum #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Dwarf nova #Instability #Intermediate polar #Magnetohydrodynamic drive #Magnetohydrodynamics #Turbulence #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/311091

4 pages, 2 postscript figures, Latex, uses emulateapj.sty. To be published in Ap. J. Letters

arxiv created 1997/10/22 · openalex publication_date 1998/01/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

We show that dwarf nova disks in quiescence have rather low magnetic Reynolds numbers, of order 10 3 . Numerical simulations of magnetized accretion disks suggest that under these conditions magnetohydrodynamic turbulence and the associated angular momentum transport is sharply reduced. This could be the physical origin of episodic accretion in dwarf nova disks. If so, the standard disk instability model needs to be revised.

Citations

• A powerful local shear instability in weakly magnetized disks. I - Linear analysis. II - Nonlinear evolution

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