Turbulence and Particle Heating in Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows
Astrophysics
2009-10-30 v1
Abstract
We extend and reconcile recent work on turbulence and particle heating in advection-dominated accretion flows. For approximately equipartition magnetic fields, the turbulence primarily heats the electrons. For weaker magnetic fields, the protons are primarily heated. The division between electron and proton heating occurs between and (where is the ratio of the gas to the magnetic pressure), depending on unknown details of how Alfv\'en waves are converted into whistlers on scales of the proton Larmor radius. We also discuss the possibility that magnetic reconnection could be a significant source of electron heating.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9803112,
title = {Turbulence and Particle Heating in Advection-Dominated Accretion Flows},
author = {Eliot Quataert and Andrei Gruzinov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9803112},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
17 pages (Latex), incl. 2 Figures; submitted to Apj