Click on the picture to reach the PDF of the slides.

The first half of the lectures, 8x2h on nonrelativistic thin accretion discs and PLUTO code, was delivered by Miljenko Cemeljic.
The second part, 6x2h lectures on General Relativity simulations and HARM code, was delivered by Debora Lancova.
One 2h lecture on Cosmology was delivered by Tomasz Krajewski.

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Short description and main focus of the course:

Accretion processes are among basic mechanisms in the universe. The similarity of underlying principles of accretion at different scales and energetic ranges offer a deep insight with the least assumptions. To obtain anything more than simplest solutions, numerical simulations must be employed.

In this course we outline from the simplest, ideal hydrodynamical, to most complicated and novel, magnetized accretion disc solutions with viscosity and electrical resistivity. We detail the used numerical methods, and guide the participants through their own simulations. The course encompass both Newtonian and general relativistic numerical simulations, with hands-on experience through running the codes and visualizing the results in the exercises, run in parralel with the lectures. The acquired knowledge could easily be used in other fields which benefit from numerical simulations.

We cover the following:

-basics of the non-relativistic thin accretion disc theory
-analytical solutions for a purely hydrodynamical disc
-numerical simulations of a thin disk in purely hydrodynamical setup with the code PLUTO
-visualization of the results in 2 and 3 dimensions
-simulations of the astrophysical jets and outflows
-basics of the general relativistic thin accretion disc theory
-hydrodynamical and magnetic instabilities, turbulence-processing of the obtained results for further modelling
-basics of General Relativity
-pseudopotentials for simulations of black holes, neutron stars and naked singularities
-general relativistic numerical simulations of thin accreton disc

The lectures were shaped in „hands-on” approach. In parallel with the lectures, the participants are from the very beginning introduced to numerical simulations in the exercise part od lectures. Our tools are state-of-the-art codes: a versatile open source code PLUTO for the Newtonian simulations and HARM for the general relativistic simulations.

References
Books:
Frank, King & Raine, „Accretion power in astrophysics”
Kato, Fukue & Mineshige, „Black-Hole Accretion Disks: Towards a New Paradigm”,

Journal papers:
Shakura & Sunyaev, 1973, non-relativistic disk
Novikov & Thorne, 1973, general relativistic disk
M. Čemeljić, 2019, "Atlas" of numerical solutions for star-disk magnetospheric interaction, A& A, 624, A31
Čemeljić, Klużniak, Parthasarathy, 2023, „Magnetically threaded accretion disks in resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations and asymptotic expansion”, A&A 678, A57
Zhu & Stone, 2018, „Global Evolution of an Accretion Disk with a Net Vertical Field: Coronal Accretion, Flux Transport, and Disk Winds”, ApJ, 867, 34
B. Mishra, 2016, .”Strongly magnetized accretion discs: structure and accretion from global magnetohydrodynamic simulation”, MNRAS 492, 1855

On-line resources:
Abramowicz & Straub, Accretion discs, Scholarpedia article: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Accretion_discs

Literature: Frank, King, Raine: Accretion power in astrophysics, 2002, Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Booklets with Miki's lectures "Thin accretion disks":
Part 1: Basic concepts and solutions (pdf, 1.6MB), Part 2: Numerical simulations (pdf, 2.9MB)

A detailed general overview on Accretion disks with literature on specific topic is given in Scholarpedia article on Accretion discs.

Last updated: February, 2025 by Miki. All rights reserved. Materials are available for download for personal use only. Any other use requires referencing of this webpage or prior permission of the author.

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