Growing hydrodynamic modes in Keplerian accretion disks during secondary perturbations: Elliptical vortex effects

Abstract

The origin of hydrodynamic turbulence, and in particular of an anomalously enhanced angular momentum transport, in accretion disks is still an unsolved problem. This is especially important for cold disk systems which are practically neutral in charge and therefore turbulence can not be of magnetohydrodynamic origin. While the flow must exhibit some instability and then turbulence in support of the transfer of mass inward and angular momentum outward, according to the linear perturbation theory, in absence of magnetohydrodynamic effects, it should always be stable. We demonstrate that the three-dimensional secondary disturbance to the primarily perturbed disk, consisting of elliptical vortices, gives significantly large hydrodynamic growth in such a system and hence may suggest a transition to an ultimately turbulent state. This result is essentially applicable to accretion disks around quiescent cataclysmic variables, in proto-planetary and star-forming disks, the outer region of disks in active galactic nuclei, where the gas is significantly cold and thus the magnetic Reynolds number is smaller than 10^4.

21 pages including 4 figures, aastex format; Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (13)

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• Higher order nonlinearity in accretion disks: QPOs of black hole and neutron star sources and their spin
• Nonlinear Evolution of Hydrodynamical Shear Flows in Two Dimensions
• Growing pseudo-eigenmodes and positive logarithmic norms in rotating shear flows
• Stochastically driven instability in rotating shear flows
• Origin of nonlinearity and plausible turbulence by hydromagnetic transient growth in accretion disks: Faster growth rate than magnetorotational instability
• Possible origin of viscosity in the Keplerian accretion disks due to secondary perturbation: Turbulent transport without magnetic field
• Transonic properties of the accretion disk around compact objects