3 research outputs found
Hydrodynamic turbulence cannot transport angular momentum effectively in astrophysical disks
The most efficient energy sources known in the Universe are accretion disks.
Those around black holes convert 5 -- 40 per cent of rest-mass energy to
radiation. Like water circling a drain, inflowing mass must lose angular
momentum, presumably by vigorous turbulence in disks, which are essentially
inviscid. The origin of the turbulence is unclear. Hot disks of electrically
conducting plasma can become turbulent by way of the linear magnetorotational
instability. Cool disks, such as the planet-forming disks of protostars, may be
too poorly ionized for the magnetorotational instability to occur, hence
essentially unmagnetized and linearly stable. Nonlinear hydrodynamic
instability often occurs in linearly stable flows (for example, pipe flows) at
sufficiently large Reynolds numbers. Although planet-forming disks have extreme
Reynolds numbers, Keplerian rotation enhances their linear hydrodynamic
stability, so the question of whether they can be turbulent and thereby
transport angular momentum effectively is controversial. Here we report a
laboratory experiment, demonstrating that non-magnetic quasi-Keplerian flows at
Reynolds numbers up to millions are essentially steady. Scaled to accretion
disks, rates of angular momentum transport lie far below astrophysical
requirements. By ruling out purely hydrodynamic turbulence, our results
indirectly support the magnetorotational instability as the likely cause of
turbulence, even in cool disks.Comment: 12 pages and 4 figures. To be published in Nature on November 16,
2006, available at
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7117/abs/nature05323.htm