Open AccessLine‐driven disc wind models with an improved line force
Author(s) -
Proga Daniel,
Stone James M.,
Drew Janet E.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1999.02935.x
Subject(s) - physics , radiation pressure , line (geometry) , mechanics , polar , radiation , tensor (intrinsic definition) , flow (mathematics) , classical mechanics , computational physics , astrophysics , geometry , optics , astronomy , mathematics
We describe an efficient method of calculating the radiation pressure resulting from spectral lines, including all the terms in the velocity gradient tensor. We apply this method to calculate the two‐dimensional, time‐dependent structure of winds from luminous discs. Qualitative features of our new models are very similar to those we calculated including only the dominant terms in the tensor. In particular, we find that models which displayed unsteady behaviour in our earlier paper are also unsteady with the new method, and gross properties of the winds, such as mass‐loss rate and characteristic velocity, are not changed by the more accurate approach. The largest change caused by the new method is in the disc‐wind opening angle: winds driven only by the disc radiation are more polar with the new method, whilst winds driven by the disc and central object radiation are typically more equatorial. In the closing discussion, we provide further insight into the way the geometry of the radiation field and consequent flow determine the time properties of the flow.