[Table of Contents]

Plasma and Fusion Research

Volume 4, 017 (2009)

Review Articles

Enhanced MHD Transport in Astrophysical Accretion Flows: Turbulence, Winds and Jets
Peter B. DOBBIE, Zdenka KUNCIC, Geoffrey V. BICKNELL1) and Raquel SALMERON1)
School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
1)
Research Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, ACT 2611, Australia
(Received 6 September 2008 / Accepted 16 March 2009 / Published 29 May 2009)

Abstract

Astrophysical accretion is arguably the most prevalent physical process in the Universe; it occurs during the birth and death of individual stars and plays a pivotal role in the evolution of entire galaxies. Accretion onto a black hole, in particular, is also the most efficient mechanism known in nature, converting up to 40% of accreting rest mass energy into spectacular forms such as high-energy (X-ray and gamma-ray) emission and relativistic jets. Whilst magnetic fields are thought to be ultimately responsible for these phenomena, our understanding of the microphysics of MHD turbulence in accretion flows as well as large-scale MHD outflows remains far from complete. We present a new theoretical model for astrophysical disk accretion which considers enhanced vertical transport of momentum and energy by MHD winds and jets, as well as transport resulting from MHD turbulence. We also describe new global, 3D simulations that we are currently developing to investigate the extent to which non-ideal MHD effects may explain how small-scale, turbulent fields (generated by the magnetorotational instability — MRI) might evolve into large-scale, ordered fields that produce a magnetized corona and/or jets where the highest energy phenomena necessarily originate.

Keywords

astrophysical accretion disk, active galactic nucleus, X-ray binary, MHD (magnetohydrodynamics), numerical simulation

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.4.017

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This paper may be cited as follows:

Peter B. DOBBIE, Zdenka KUNCIC, Geoffrey V. BICKNELL and Raquel SALMERON, Plasma Fusion Res. 4, 017 (2009).