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The Role of Opacities in Accretion Disks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2016
Extract
An accretion disk is formed when matter with angular momentum is flowing on a gravitating object (as e.g. a white dwarf, a neutron star, a young stellar object, or a black bole). It radiates because the transport of angular momentum (required for the matter to reach the central object) necessarily implies the conversion of potential energy into a form of energy that corresponds to higher entropy. Many aspects of the physics (as e.g. the mechanism for the heat generation) are not yet well understood but they are presently one of the centers of astronomical interest (see e.g. the books by Frank, King, and Raine, 1992, or by Wheeler, 1993).
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- II. Joint Discussions
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- Copyright © Kluwer 1995