Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2014
8.1 Introduction
Astronomers have a remarkably successful theory for stars and stellar evolution. This success is due in part to the simplicity of spherical symmetry and steady-state equilibrium. Stars can be modeled using a series of time-independent equations that depend on only one spatial coordinate, namely the radius of the star. But the universe is a much more dynamic and active place than is implied by the stars alone. Some of the most energetic photons that astronomers observe originate not within stars but in orbiting disks of gas. This realization has brought the study of accretion disks to the forefront of high-energy astrophysics.
The idea of an orbiting disk of gas in a context other than that of a nascent solar system or spiral galaxy can be traced at least as far back as the work of astronomer Gerard Kuiper on mass transfer in close binary stellar systems. He noted that in such systems, gas can flow through a stream from one star to the other. Kuiper realized that the gas would possess sufficient angular momentum that it must go into orbit around the attracting star, forming a ring.
In 1955, John Crawford and Robert Kraft published a paper (Crawford and Kraft, 1956) that proposed an orbiting ring model for AE Aquarii, a short-period binary star system that showed significant episodic variability. The masses of the stars and the sizes of their orbits were such that mass transfer from one star to the other was likely.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.