Summary: Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1998
8
momentum, and so flow in radially. Such
purely radial `Bondi­Hoyle' flows have
very low radiation efficiencies. Melia
then showed that a 10­4
-solar-mass yr­1
Bondi­Hoyle flow onto a million-solar-
mass black hole would produce something
like the observed radio to X-ray spectrum of
SgrA*,includingitsweakinfraredemission4
.
However, even small deviations from the
purely radial flow would create a very large
amount of infrared radiation, inconsistent
with the observations; and such deviations
would be likely to occur, at least transiently,
through incomplete mixing of the incoming
wind gas, or interactions with a pre-existing
fossilaccretiondisk.

Source: Abbott, Laurence - Center for Neurobiology and Behavior & Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, Columbia University

Collections: Biology and Medicine