Simulating Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton Accretion in a Turbulent Medium

Abstract

The accretion of matter by massive, compact objects is a process common in many astrophysical systems. This process has been characterized quasi-analytically for the case of a point mass moving with constant velocity relative to a stationary, non-magnetized fluid, which is due to Bondi, Hoyle, and Lyttleton. In most real systems of interest, however, the flow of the accreted gas is disrupted by turbulence from high-energy events, and the gas is in fact an ionized plasma. Following previous work by Krumholz et al. (2006) [10], we simulate accretion onto a point mass embedded in a supersonically turbulent medium. Ultimately, we support previous results which highlight the importance of accounting for vorticity in accretion rate calculations, and we do so at double the resolution of previous studies.