A separable solution for the oscillatory structure of plasma in accretion disks

¹  Department of Physics (G9), “Sapienza” Università di Roma - Piazzale A. Moro 5, 00185, Rome, Italy, EU
²  ICRA, International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics c/o Department of Physics, “Sapienza” Università di Roma - Piazzale A. Moro 5, 00185, Rome, Italy, EU
³  ENEA, C.R. Frascati (Department F.P.N.) - Via Enrico Fermi 45, 00044, Frascati (Rome), Italy, EU
⁴  ICRANet, C.C. Pescara - Piazza della Repubblica 10, 65100, Pescara, Italy, EU

Corresponding author: lattanzi@icra.it

Received: 22 December 2009
Accepted: 15 January 2010

Abstract

In this paper we provide a new analysis of the system of partial differential equations describing the radial and vertical equilibria of the plasma in accretion disks. In particular, we show that the partial differential system can be separated once a definite oscillatory (or hyperbolic) form for the radial dependence of the relevant physical quantities is assumed. The system is thus reduced to an ordinary differential system in the vertical dimensionless coordinate. The resulting equations can be integrated analytically in the limit of small magnetic pressure. We complete our analysis with a direct numerical integration of the more general case. The main result is that a ring-like density profile (i.e., radial oscillations in the mass density) can appear even in the limit of small magnetic pressure.