Two-Dimensional Radiation-Hydrodynamic Model for Supercritical Disk Accretion Flows onto Neutron Stars

Abstract

Abstract We performed two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic simulations of supercritical accretion flows around neutron stars (NSs). In contrast with accretion flows onto black holes (BHs), we find that shell-shaped high-density regions form around the NSs, since the radiation force is enhanced in the innermost regions. The enhanced radiation force drives strong outflows above and below the disk. The mass-accretion rate onto the NS exceeds the critical rate, $L_{\rm E}/c^2$, with $L_{\rm E}$ being the Eddington luminosity. However it is about 20–30% of that onto the BH, under the condition that we employ the same mass-input rate, $\dot{M}_{\rm input}$, which is the mass injected from the outer disk boundary per unit time. The mass-outflow rate is a few-times larger in flows around NSs than in flows around BHs. The supercritical NS accretion flows mainly release the accretion energy as kinetic energy of the outflows, though the disk luminosity is predominant over the kinetic energy output rate in the BH accretion flows. The resulting velocity and mass-outflow rate of the outflows are 0.2–0.3$c$ and 150–700$L_{\rm E}/c^2$, respectively, for a mass-input rate of $3 \times 10^2\lesssim \dot{M}_{\rm input} /(L_{\rm E}/c^2)\lesssim 3\times 10^3$. This implies that the SS 433 jets can be roughly explained by supercritical accretion onto a NS. However, the collimation angle of the outflows in our simulations ($\sim 20^\circ$) is larger than that of the SS 433 jets (a few degrees).