Paper detail

The accretion and spreading of matter on white dwarfs

For a slowly rotating non-magnetized white dwarf the accretion disk extends all the way to the star. Here the matter impacts and spreads towards the poles as new matter continuously piles up behind it. We have solved the 3d compressible Navier-Stokes equations on an axisymmetric grid to determine the structure of this boundary layer for different viscosities corresponding to different accretion rates. The high viscosity cases show a spreading BL which sets off a gravity wave in the surface matter. The accretion flow moves supersonically over the cusp making it susceptible to the rapid development of gravity wave and/or Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities. This BL is optically thick and extends more than 30 degrees to either side of the disk plane after 3/4 of a Keplerian rotation period (t=19s). The low viscosity cases also show a spreading BL, but here the accretion flow does not set off gravity waves and it is optically thin.