A Review of Bondi--Hoyle--Lyttleton Accretion
Astrophysics
2009-11-10 v2
Abstract
If a point mass moves through a uniform gas cloud, at what rate does it accrete material? This is the question studied by Bondi, Hoyle and Lyttleton. This paper draws together the work performed in this area since the problem was first studied. Time has shown that, despite the simplifications made, Bondi, Hoyle and Lyttleton made quite accurate predictions for the accretion rate. Bondi--Hoyle--Lyttleton accretion has found application in many fields of astronomy, and these are also discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0406166,
title = {A Review of Bondi--Hoyle--Lyttleton Accretion},
author = {R. G. Edgar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0406166},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
25 pages Accepted by New Astronomy Reviews Revision corrects a rather important typo about timescales in the stability section