Homework 5 Astro 111 - Order of Magnitude: Fall 2016

1) Black-Hole Growth and Accretion Power.

A). Create a simple differential equation for how the mass of a black-hole (BH) grows with time
while its accreting at the Eddington luminosity.

The luminosity of an accreting object comes from the conversion (with some efficiency ) of the
gravitational binding energy:
dE GM dm
L= = (1)
dt R dt
Note that the energy accreted is added to the star, i.e. dm dM
dt = dt (perhaps with a minus sign,
depending on convention). The Eddington luminosity (LEdd ) is defined as the maximum luminosity
for which the gravitational pressure can still keep the star bound:
4Gmp c
LEdd = M (2)
T
dm
Combining equations 1 and 2 and solving for dt yields
dM 8Gmp
= M (t) (3)
dt T c
2GM
Where we have substituted R = c2
for the radius of a black-hole.

B). Solve this equation starting with a stellar mass BH (lets say, M = 7M ), to find how long it
takes to reach a luminosity of L = 1047 erg s1 . Assume a radiative efficiency of = 0.1

The differential equation in Eq. 3 is one of the more common and important forms: the derivate
of a function is equal to a constant times that function, i.e. dMdt(t) = kM (t). The solution is of the
form
8Gmp
M (t) = Aekt s.t. k (4)
T c
The multiplicative constant is given by the initial condition, i.e. at t = 0, M (t) = 7M . Plugging
Eq. 4 into Eq. 2 along with LEdd = 1047 and = 0.1 yields
t 1017 s 109 yr (5)

C). A given quasar has a luminosity of 1047 erg s1 and varies on the timescale of a day. Deduce a
mass and a radius for the emitting. How does the implied density compare with that of the Earth?
What is the mass accretion rate assuming a radiative efficiency of 10%? How does the amount of
mass eaten per second compare with the mass of the Earth?

From considerations in the previous sections of this problem, the mass of this object must be
about 108 M . If it varies on the timescale of a day, that means that information (in other words:
some sort of interactions) can cross from one side to the other within about a day. The fastest
that information (interactions) can travel, is the speed of light: thus, d = 1 day 1010 cm/s
1015 cm 50 AU is an upper limit on the size of the object. The density of such an object would
simply be = M/V 0.01 g/cm3 , which is about 100 times less dense than the sun (about the
same as water), and almost 500 times less than the earth.
Homework 5 Astro 111 - Order of Magnitude: Fall 2016

dm
Using Eq. 1, we can find the mass accretion rate to be dt 1029 g/s 100 earths per second.

2) Cosmic Rays. Cosmic rays propagate diffusively within the Galaxy. Let us apply standard
diffusion theory and see what it predicts. Suppose a burst of particles injected at t = 0 evolves in
spatial density n according to the diffusion equation
n 2n
=D 2
t z
where D, the diffusion coefficient, can be written in terms of the particle velocity v and mean free
path to scattering as D = v.
A). Derive an expression for the diffusion time . Calculate such that = 107 yr if the cosmic
ray gradient scale length L is 1 kpc. Estimate how many scatterings a cosmic ray undergoes in time
.
According to standard diffusion theory, the timescale to diffuse a length L is L2 /D. With L =
1 kpc and = 107 yr, D = c = 3 1028 cm2 s1 . Therefore, 0.3 pc. The time between
scatterings is /c = 3 107 s, so a particle scatters about 107 times during its confinement.
B). Scattering from moving fluctuations leads to a net gain in energy (a process known as Fermi
acceleration). If the flucutation velocities V are randomly oriented in direction and have mean
amplitude V , the energization rate is of order
dE V2
= E
dt c
Take V 10 km s1 and use the results of [a] to estimate the fractional change in particle energy
E/E during the confinement time . Is Fermi acceleration during propagation likely to be an
important mechanism of cosmic ray acceleration?
We define an acceleration time E = E/(dE/dt) = c/V 2 . Using Part [a] and the parameters
given here, E 109 yr. This means that the Fermi acceleration associated with scattering changes
the energy of the particles, on average, by 1%, a negligible amount. If cosmic rays do undergo
continuous acceleration in the interstellar medium then we would expect the abundance of spallation
products to increase with cosmic ray energy. In fact, it slightly decreases, which is consistent with
our result for the acceleration rate.