Found 24 talks width keyword accretion, accretion discs

This paper discusses how cosmic gas accretion controls star formation, and summarizes the physical properties expected for the cosmic gas accreted by galaxies. The paper also collects observational evidence for gas accretion sustaining star formation. It reviews evidence inferred from neutral and ionized hydrogen, as well as from stars. A number of properties characterizing large samples of star-forming galaxies can be explained by metal-poor gas accretion, in particular, the relationship between stellar mass, metallicity, and star formation rate (the so-called fundamental metallicity relationship). They are put forward and analyzed. Theory predicts gas accretion to be particularly important at high redshift, so indications based on distant objects are reviewed, including the global star formation history of the universe, and the gas around galaxies as inferred from absorption features in the spectra of background sources.

The flow of gas from the cosmic web into galaxies provides the necessary fuel for star formation and galaxy assembly. I will review our current knowledge about gas accretion into galaxies and its consequences for galaxy formation at high and low redshifts. Special attention will be given to the detectability of cold streams as Lyman-alpha blobs or Lyman-Limit systems, as well as the current challenges to the cold-flow picture.

Neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries (NS-LMXBs) are unique laboratories of accretion physics, strong gravity and ultra-dense matter. I will give an overview of what we have learned in recent years by studying accretion flows and thermonuclear bursts in these systems.

I will first present and discuss the main result of a systematic study of their different accretion states: the discovery of a correlation between luminosity and spectral hardness. I will also show ongoing work on the connection between active (1-100% of the Eddington luminosity) and quiescent (down to 10^-6 times Eddington) phases of NS-LMXBs.

In the second part I will focus on the relation between mass accretion rate and the recurrence time of thermonuclear bursts (explosive nuclear burning on the neutron star surface), presenting results at the lowest and highest mass accretion rates. In particular, I will argue that rotation plays a larger role than we thought in setting the nuclear burning regimes on an accreting neutron star.

An astrophysical black hole is completely described with just two parameters: its mass and its dimensionless spin. A few dozen black holes have mass estimates, but until recently none had a reliable spin estimate. The first spins have now been measured for black holes in X-ray binaries. The talk will describe the method used to make these measurements and will discuss implications of the results obtained so far.

Milky Way and most spiral galaxies present some features in the outer part of its disk such as S-warping or U-warping, flaring, lopsidedness, truncation/non-truncation and others, both for the stellar and the gas component. In the present talk, I will review some of the galactic dynamics hypotheses which try to explain these features: either in terms of gravitational interaction, magnetic fields, accretion of intergalactic matter or others. The gravitational interaction may be among the different components of the galaxy or between the spiral galaxy and another companion galaxy. The accretion of intergalactic matter may be either into the halo, with a later gravitational interaction between the misaligned halo and the disc, or directly onto the disc. The phenomena of the outer disc in spiral galaxies might be produced by more than a mechanism. Nonetheless, the hypothesis of accretion of intergalactic matter onto the disc presents several advantages over its competitors, since it explains most of the relevant observed features, whereas other hypotheses only explain them partially.

I present some recent results from our Optical and NIR studies of five short period low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXB's; X1822-371, X1957+115, UW CrB, X1916-05 and X0614+091). Optical photometry and spectroscopy reveal some surprising results on the geometry and evolution of accretions discs in LMXB's. Based on our data, it is increasingly clear that accretion discs in these systems are far from being stable and must undergo substantial precession and/or warping behaviour on timescales less than a day in case of the shortest period systems.