Incompressible wind accretion

Abstract

We present a simple, analytic model for the accretion flow of an incompressible wind onto a gravitating object. This solution corresponds to the Newtonian limit of a previously known relativistic model for a fluid obeying a stiff equation of state for which the sound speed is constant everywhere and equal to the speed of light. The new solution should be useful as a benchmark test for numerical hydrodynamics codes and, moreover, it can be used as an illustrative example in a gas dynamics course.