Spherical Accretion onto Neutron Stars Revisited: Are Hot Solutions Possible ?
Abstract
Stationary, spherical accretion onto an unmagnetized neutron star is here reconsidered on the wake of the seminal paper by Zel'dovich \& Shakura (1969). It is found that new ``hot'' solutions may exist for a wide range of luminosities. These solutions are characterized by a high temperature, 109 1011 K, and arise from a stationary equilibrium model where the dominant radiative mechanisms are multiple Compton scattering and bremsstrahlung emission. For low luminosities, 10-2 \ LE, only the ``cold'' (\`a la Zel'dovich and Shakura) solution is present.
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