McGill.CA / Science / Department of Physics

Physical Society Colloquium

Special Physics Seminar

Accretion in Compact X-ray Sources

Andrei M. Beloborodov

CITA

There are three classical modes of gas accretion: wind-fed, spherical, and disk. I will illustrate the three modes with the mass transfer in high-mass X-ray binaries. Then I will describe a new regime of mini-disk accretion. Observed X-ray sources associated with black holes are likely to accrete in this regime. Switching from one accretion mode to another can cause the observed spectral transitions.

Thursday, January 24th 2002, 12:00
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, Boardroom (room 104)