Study of relativistic accretion flow in the $f(R)$ theory of gravity

Abstract

We present the properties of relativistic, inviscid, low angular momentum, advective accretion flow in a $f(R)$ gravity theory that satisfactorily mimics the asymptotically flat vacuum solutions of the Einstein's equations. With this, we solve the governing equations describing the accretion flow and obtain the global transonic accretion solutions in terms of flow energy (${\cal E}$), angular momentum ($\lambda$) and gravity parameter ($A$) that determines the effect of $f(R)$ gravity. We observe that depending on the model parameters, flow may contain either single or multiple critical points. We separate the effective domain of the parameter space in $\lambda-{\cal E}$ plane that admits accretion solutions possessing multiple critical points and observe that solution of this kind continues to form for wide range of the flow parameters. We examine the modification of the parameter space and reveal that it gradually shrinks with the decrease of $A$, and ultimately disappears for $A=-2.34$. Finally, we calculate the disk luminosity ($L$) considering bremsstrahlung emission process and find that global accretion solutions passing through the inner critical point are more luminous compared to the outer critical point solutions.