Astrophysical Accretion as an Analogue Gravity Phenomena

In recent years, strong analogies have been established between the physics of acoustic perturbations in an inhomogeneous dynamical fluid system, and some kinematic features of space-time in general relativity. An effective metric, referred to as the `acoustic metric', which describes the geometry of the manifold in which acoustic perturbations propagate, can be constructed. This effective geometry can capture the properties of curved space-time in general relativity. Physical models constructed utilizing such analogies are called `analogue gravity models'. Classical analogue gravity effect may be observed when acoustic perturbations propagate through a inhomogeneous transonic classical fluid. The acoustic horizon, which resembles a black hole event horizon in many ways, is generated at the transonic point in the fluid flow. The acoustic horizon is essentially a null hyper surface, generators of which are the acoustic null geodesics, i.e. the phonons. The acoustic horizon emits acoustic radiation with quasi thermal phonon spectra, which is analogous to the actual Hawking radiation. The temperature of the radiation emitted from the acoustic horizon is referred to as the analogue Hawking temperature. It has been demonstrated that, in general, the transonic accretion in astrophysics can be considered as an example of the classical analogue gravity model naturally found in the Universe.Comment: 56 pages, 11 figures, revtex4. Send email request to the author for high resolution version of the manuscrip

Effective sound speed in relativistic accretion discs around rotating black holes

For axially symmetric accretion maintained in the hydrostatic equilibrium along the vertical direction in the Kerr metric, the radial Mach number does not become unity at the critical point. The sonic points are, thus, formed at a radial distance different from that where the critical points are formed. We propose that a modified dynamical sound speed can be defined through the linear perturbation of the full space-time dependent equations describing the aforementioned accretion flow structure. The linear stability analysis of such fluid equations leads to the formation of an wave equation which describes the propagation of linear acoustic perturbation. The speed of propagation of such perturbation can be used as the effective sound speed which makes the value of the Mach number to be unity when evaluated at the critical points. This allows the critical points to coalesce with the sonic points. We study how the spin angular momentum of the black hole (the Kerr parameter) influences the value of the effective sound speed