Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion on to black hole accretion disks with super-Eddington luminosity for dusty gas

We investigate the Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion of dusty gas for the case where the central source is the black hole accretion disk. By solving the equation of motion taking into account the radiation force which is attenuated by the dust absorption, we reveal the steady structure of the flow around the central object. We find that the mass accretion rate tends to increase with an increase of the optical thickness of the flow and the gas can accrete even if the disk luminosity exceeds the Eddington luminosity for the dusty gas, since the radiation force is weakened by the attenuation via the dust absorption. When the gas flows in from the direction of the rotation axis for the disk with Gamma' = 3.0, the accretion rate is about 93% of the Hoyle-Lyttleton accretion rate if tau(HL) = 3.3 and zero for tau(HL) = 1.0, where Gamma' is the Eddington ratio for the dusty gas and tau(HL) is the typical optical thickness of the Hoyle-Lyttleton radius. Since the radiation flux in the direction of disk plane is small, the radiation force tends not to prevent gas accretion from the direction near the disk plane. For tau(HL) = 3.3 and Gamma' = 3.4, although the accretion is impossible in the case of Theta = 0 degrees, the accretion rate is 28% of the Hoyle-Lyttleton one in the case of Theta = 90 degrees, where Theta is the angle between the direction the gas is coming from and the rotation axis of the disk. We also obtain relatively high accretion luminosity that is realized when the accretion rate of the disk on to the BH is consistent with that via the Hoyle-Lyttleton mechanism taking into account the effect of radiation. This implies that the intermediate-mass black holes moving in the dense dusty gas are identified as luminous objects in the infrared band.

Automated summary

The study reveals that dusty gas can accrete even when the disc luminosity exceeds Eddington luminosity, as radiation force is weakened by dust absorption. The accretion rate can approach the Hoyle-Lyttleton rate under specific conditions. Additionally, the accretion rate on the black hole accretion disk is consistent with the Hoyle-Lyttleton mechanism taking into account radiation effects.