English

Radiative Efficiency of Collisionless Accretion

Astrophysics 2009-10-30 v1

Abstract

Radiative efficiency of a slowly accreting black hole is estimated using a two-temperature model of accretion. The radiative efficiency depends on the magnetic field strength near the Schwarzschild radius. For weak magnetic fields (magnetic energy=equipartition/1000), the low efficiency 0.0001 assumed in some theoretical models might be achieved. For stronger fields, a significant fraction of viscous heat is dissipated by electrons and radiated away resulting in a larger efficiency. At equipartition magnetic fields, we estimate efficiency = of order 10%.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9710132,
  title  = {Radiative Efficiency of Collisionless Accretion},
  author = {Andrei V. Gruzinov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9710132},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

12 pages, Latex, Submitted to ApJ

R2 v1 2026-07-22T09:36:04.390Z