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# A note on the Declarative reading(s) of Logic Programming

## Introduction

Logic’s fundamental role in the area of computing and artificial intelligence, is its use for knowledge representation. There may be innumerable ways in which some domain knowledge can be encoded in a logic theory; however, there is one principle which most consider as the canonical way of using logic. Declarative knowledge representation operates according to the following principle:

> the expert represents his domain knowledge by a set of formal statements that are true in the problem domain.

This principle relies on the ability of the expert to interpret a logical axiom as a clear and precise statement about the domain of discourse. The ability of interpreting the formulas of a logic as meaningful statements about the problem domain -given some interpretation of the user-defined symbols- is the declarative reading of the logic. It is based on a clear understanding of the connectors and quantifiers and of how composed axioms combine these meanings.

A declarative semantics of the logic can be defined as a formal study of its -intuitive- declarative reading. As such it should contain the following parts:

* a clear account of some declarative reading of the formulas and theories in a logic;
* a mathematical characterisation of a formal semantics;
* a justification why and how this semantics characterises this declarative reading.

In a sense, a declarative semantics should relate a logic to some part of the human cognition and understanding. Note that a simple way of defining a declarative semantics of a logic is by providing an embedding in another logic with a well-established declarative semantics. Such semantics are sometimes called transformational semantics.

The declarative reading of logical axioms gives logic a decisive advantage over other languages. It allows the expert to compare a formal statement with his or her knowledge and to evaluate its truth, without going through the painful process of explicitly constructing the mathematical semantics of the axioms. This ideal is reached most clearly in classical logic. So, our common expert knowledge allows us to recognize the statement

$$x.person(x)male(x)female(x)$$

as true (given the obvious intended interpretation of the predicate symbols), and the statement

$$x.male(x)female(x)$$

as false. We can do so on the basis of our intuitive understanding, without having to construct the semantics of these sentences, i.e. their class of models.

It is a fact that to be able to represent knowledge in a declarative way and to benefit the potential advantages of this type of knowledge representation, a human expert must have acquired a deep and precise understanding of the declarative reading of the logic that he is using. Ambiguities and unclarities on the level of declarative reading cause ambiguities and unclarities on the level of knowledge representation. For this reason, studies of declarative reading are of key importance in the development of knowledge representation methodologies.

This paper is a study of the declarative reading(s) of logic programming. The history of the declarative semantics of logic programming is well-known. Originally, the picture was simple and clear: the declarative reading of a Horn logic program was the declarative reading of a set of classical logic implications. The introduction of negation as failure blurred this simple view. On the one hand, negation as failure derived conclusions with a strong commonsense appeal and turned out to be very useful and natural in many practical situations. On the other hand, the negation as failure inference rule was unsound with respect to the declarative reading of a program as a set of classical implications. As expressed by Przymusinski (?), “we really do not want classical logic semantics for logic programs. .. We want the semantics of a logic program to be determined more by its commonsense meaning.”. All main semantic investigations since the end of the seventies (least model semantics (?), completion (?), perfect model semantics (??), stable model semantics (?), well-founded model semantics (?)) attempted to formalise and explicitate this commonsense meaning of logic programs.

The question considered in this paper is to what extent the commonsense meaning referred to by Przymusinski has been identified: what is or are the declarative reading(s) of logic programming and what are the corresponding meanings of its symbols $`not,`$. What are the semantics that correspond best to these declarative readings?

The analysis of the declarative reading of logic programming is complicated by at least two factors. One complication is that different formal semantics exist (in 2-, 3- and 4-valued versions). In particular, stable and well-founded semantics are generally considered as the main ones. However, there is a second complication which is more subtle and much more dangerous. Let me try to pinpoint this problem.

It is well-known that logic programming can be used for representing many different sorts of knowledge (?): (inductive) definitions, defaults, reflective knowledge of experts, etc.., both under well-founded semantics and stable model semantics. Remarkable though is that the same logic program or rule in a logic program can be used to represent knowledge with a decidedly distinct commonsense flavor. For example, we might represent the definition that dead means not alive by the rule:

$$deadnotalive$$

The interpretation of this rule as a definition of dead is explicitated by the completion semantics (?), Clark’s embedding of logic programming in classical logic. If the rule defining $`dead`$ is the only rule with $`dead`$ in the head, the completion will contain the equivalence

$$dead\neg alive$$

Since stable and well-founded models are models of the completion, this rule is satisfied also in these models.

On the other hand, consider the reflective knowledge of the distrustful man who is unhappy if he does not know that his wife is faithful to him. His reflective knowledge can be represented by the same rule (modulo renaming) as in the above scenario:

$$unhappynotwife\mathrm{\_}faithful$$

Indeed, Gelfond’s embedding of logic programs in autoepistemic logic (?) maps this rule to the autoepistemic formula:

$$unhappy\neg Kwife\mathrm{\_}faithful$$

which directly represents the knowledge of the distrustful man.

Gelfond’s embedding defines a transformational declarative semantics for logic programming. It formed the knowledge theoretical foundation for stable model semantics (?); therefore we are entitled to assume that stable semantics is conceived to represent this sort of knowledge. Note here that negation as failure is interpreted as a modal operator and the implication operator as classical implication. This is a common feature of all embeddings of logic programming in autoepistemic logic (AEL) and in default logic (DL). Another important embedding is Marek and Truszczynski’s one to DL (?). It maps he above rule to:

$$\begin{array}{c}:\neg wife\mathrm{\_}faithful\\ \\ unhappy\end{array}$$

For an overview of different embeddings see (?)).

From the commonsense point of view, there is a definite distinction between both pieces of knowledge. The definition of dead expresses that in the actual state of the world, dead and alive are mutually exclusive: the exclusive “or” holds between them. If the expert does not know whether alive is true or false, then he does not know whether dead is true or false. On the other hand, the knowledge of the distrustful man does not imply any relationship between the unhappiness of the distrustful man and the loyalty of the spouse in the actual state of the world. It is perfectly possible that in the actual state of the world, she is not loyal but he does not know and he is happy.

Consider the logic program program $`\{pnotq\}`$. All main semantics coincide for it; its formal semantics (i.e. the set of its models) is the unique model $`\{p\}`$. Yet, as illustrated above, Clark’s embedding and Gelfond’s embedding assign two different commonsense meanings to this program:

* In the completion, the program states that $`q`$ is false (because of the empty definition) and that $`p`$ is true iff $`q`$ is false.

The model represents the state of the world in which $`p`$ is true and $`q`$ is false. According to the completion, this is the only possible state of the world.
* The program in Gelfond’s embedding states that $`p`$ holds if $`q`$ is not known to be true.

Since in this interpretation, the program has no knowledge about $`q`$, $`q`$ is unknown, hence $`p`$ is entailed. Note that contrary to the first reading, here $`q`$ is not known to be false.

What is proven in (?), is that the stable model represents the set of believed atoms of the above theory: $`\{p\}`$ means that $`p`$ is believed, and that the truth of $`q`$ is not believed.

Based on our intuition, what can be said about the possible states of the world in this reading? Obviously, since $`q`$ is unknown, there should be states in which $`q`$ is true and states in which $`q`$ is false; $`p`$ should be true always. Hence, the two possible states are $`\{p\}`$ and $`\{q,p\}`$.

Moore (?) defined a possible world semantics for AEL. Intuitively, a possible world model is a set of possible states of the world according to the expert’s knowledge. The unique possible world model of the theory $`\{p\neg Kq\}`$ is exactly the set $`\{\{p\},\{q,p\}`$; this confirms our intuition.

The above discussion leads to a key point of this paper: even if we know the models of a logic program, we still cannot decide the intended declarative reading. We can only know -to some extent- what is the declarative reading if we know also what is the role of the model. A mathematical definition of some collection of models of theories in a logic cannot define a declarative reading. In this sense, a model theory is not a declarative semantics in its own right.

In the sequel, a model semantics will be called a possible state semantics for some declarative reading if it characterises the possible states of the world; a model theory will be called an atomic belief set semantics of some declarative reading if it characterises the sets of believed atoms in this declarative reading.

It is not a simple task to search for the declarative reading(s) of logic programming. In the first place, many of the early semantical studies in the context of logic programming are not primarily concerned with finding and formalising a commonsense meaning, but are more concerned with finding a mathematical justification for the reasoning techniques in Prolog.

Other studies are more focussed on the commonsense meaning, but fail to give a clear account of the formalised declarative reading and the role of the models. There is an enormous amount of mathematical results on the relationships between different model semantics. However, because atomic belief sets and possible states are incomparable objects, it is a priori not clear what these relations mean on the level of declarative reading. Moreover, in many knowledge representation examples, one can observe that the same semantics is used once as an atomic belief set semantics, once as an possible state semantics.

In order to clarify the role of logic programming for Knowledge representation, the question of declarative reading of logic programming cannot be circumvented. In the rest of the paper I will try to pinpoint the main ideas on declarative reading and the confusions on this topic.

## Declarative readings of logic programming

An investigating of the transformational semantics that have been proposed for logic programming, gives some insight in the possible declarative readings of logic programming.

It seems to me that at least in the non-monotonic and A.I. oriented part of the logic programming community, logic programming is now routinely seen as a sub-logic of default logic or autoepistemic logic. In this view, the negation as failure is interpreted as a modal negation. This view has a natural motivation: a Prolog system is said to infer a negative literal $`notp`$ when it is unable to prove $`p`$. A natural way of modeling failure to prove in semantics is as not knowing. From here, it was natural to interpret $`notp`$ as $`\neg Kp`$.

All main logic programming semantics - least model, supported model, 3-valued supported model, perfect model, stable model, 3-valued stable model and well-founded semantics - have been justified as atomic belief set semantics of diverse modal interpretations of logic programming. The methods that have been used are analogous as Gelfond and Lifschitz’s justification for stable semantics: one defines an embedding of logic programming to some non-monotone modal logic and the models of the logic program are shown to be the set of believed atoms. In these transformational semantics, models of logic programming semantics systematically play the role of a set of believed atoms. For an overview of these results, I refer to (?).

On the other hand, I believe that there is also a persistent and strong intuition that among all classical models of a logic program, there is a canonical one (or at most a small number of canonical ones) which represents the unique possible state of the world. The Clark completion semantics was an early, weak attempt to identify this canonical model. In this view, negation as failure does not need to be interpreted as a modal operator: it is classical objective negation denoting falsity in the canonical model.

The main questions are what declarative reading of logic programming could explain the existence of a unique possible state and how could this unique model be mathematically characterized?

These questions were considered in (??). The idea is to read a logic program as an inductive definition. From the very start, logic programs were considered as definitions. This was Clark’s basic idea with the completion semantics. Note that Clark’s completed definitions are identical to the way (non-recursive) definitions are expressed, for example in Beth’s studies.

The evident problem with Clark completion semantics is that it does not deal well with inductive definitions. On the other hand, least model semantics is known to deal right with positive inductive definitions such as transitive closure. Using the above terminology, the least model semantics can be said to be possible state semantics for the reading of Horn programs as inductive definitions. In fact, as pointed out in (?), the methods that have been used to characterize monotone induction are identical to those that were used to characterize least model semantics of Horn programs.

Can we extend the view of Horn logic programs as inductive definitions to programs with negation? In (?), I have argued that the use of induction in mathematics is not restricted to positive induction. An example is the induction in a well-founded set. To some extend, a generalised form of non-monotone induction have been studied in the area of inductive definitions, the so called Iterated Inductive Definitions (?). As I showed, this formalism is isomorphic modulo syntactic sugar with stratified logic programs under perfect model semantics. Further on, I have pointed to several intolerable weaknesses of this stratified approach as a formalisation of generalised induction and have argued that these problems are solved by the well-founded semantics. Or, the argument there was that the well-founded semantics is a possible state semantics of the declarative reading of logic programs as generalised inductive definitions111Note that well-founded semantics has been motivated both as an atomic belief set semantics and as a possible state semantics..

Consequently, logic programming has not a unique declarative reading. The modal view and the definition view are both consistent ways of interpreting logic programs; moreover they lead to very similar model theories, though these theories have different roles.

The above phenomenon, the existence of different consistent declarative views on the same formalism is a potential source of considerable confusion. In the remaining sections, I investigate possible confusions.

## Distinguishing between declarative readings

### Comparing declarative semantics

The mathematical relations between the least model, models of the completion, the perfect model, stable models and well-founded model are understood quite well. The question I consider here is what they tell about the relations between the two types of declarative readings.

A naive comparison of different semantics of logic programming is misleading. For example, the collection of stable models is known to be a subset of the collection of models of the completion. What does this result mean on the level of the declarative readings underlying both semantics?

Not much it seems. E.g. the possible world model of Gelfond’s embedding and Marek and Truszczynski’s embedding of the program $`\{pnotq\}`$ is the set $`\{\{p\},\{q,p\}\}`$; this is a proper superset of the (singleton) set of models of the completion. Consequently, in the case of this particular program, the completion is strictly stronger than the default or AEL reading.

### Expressing knowledge declaratively

Consider a logic with an atomic belief set semantics for its declarative reading. Assume that the models of a logic theory are exactly the possible states of the world according to the expert’s knowledge. This theory encodes the expert’s knowledge but obviously, it is not necessarily a declarative representation of the expert’s knowledge. In general the declarative reading of the theory does not justify that the models are the only possible states of the world. In fact, it may well be that part of the axioms of the theory are false statements about the domain of discourse.

The above phenomenon can be illustrated in LP. Since stable semantics is an extension of least model semantics, it is suitable to encode positive inductive definitions such as the one of transitive closure:

$$\begin{array}{c}p(a,a)\hfill \\ p(b,c)\hfill \\ tr(X,Y)p(X,Y)\hfill \\ tr(X,Y)p(X,Z),tr(Z,Y)\hfill \end{array}$$

The unique stable model indeed represents the unique possible state of the graph and its transitive closure.

But this does not necessarily mean that inductive definitions can be expressed under the default reading of logic programs. For example, the meaning of this program under Gelfond’s embedding is identical to its classical logic meaning (since AEL is a conservative extension of classical propositional logic).

This problem gives rise to unsoundness. For example, with the inductive definition, the expert knows that $`p(a,b)`$ and $`tr(a,b)`$ are false. Yet, the AEL embedding entails $`\neg Kp(a,b)`$ and $`\neg Ktr(a,b)`$.

In the case of the transitive closure, the modal declarative reading (as expressed under the above mentioned AEL and DL embeddings) of the axioms is true but too weak to justify the unique model. An example where the declarative reading would be plainly false can be given by a variant of the $`dead`$ and $`alive`$ example. Assume that the expert wants to represent the definition that $`dead`$ means not $`alive`$, as represented by $`dead\neg alive`$. A possible way to do this using stable semantics is:

$$\begin{array}{c}deadnotalive\hfill \\ alivenotalive^{}\hfill \\ alive^{}notalive\hfill \end{array}$$

The two stable models (after projection on the two atoms $`alive,dead`$ are identical to the models of the equivalence. Yet, it is easy to see that both the AEL and DL embedding assigns false meaning to the first axiom. Indeed, it is not true that $`dead`$ is true if one does not know that $`alive`$ is true.

### Mixing different declarative readings

The presence of multiple declarative readings and multiple roles of models raises complications on the level of methodology. This becomes obvious when different roles are mixed.

Consider what happens if the different sorts of declarative readings are used in the same program. Reconsider the example of the distrustful man. Assume that we want to add the definition that to be $`happy`$ means not to be $`unhappy`$. According to the completion, this knowledge is correctly represented by the rule:

$$happynotunhappy$$

What happens if we combine this rule with the reflective knowledge of the jealous husband. Consider the program:

$$\left\{\begin{array}{c}unhappynotwife\mathrm{\_}faithful\hfill \\ happynotunhappy\hfill \end{array}\right\}$$

This program consists now of two isomorphic statements which are both true, but under different declarative readings. Note that again all semantics for this program coincide. The model is $`\{unhappy\}`$. What does this model mean? Consider the two options that arose earlier:

* If this model is to be interpreted that $`unhappy`$ is true and $`wife\mathrm{\_}faithful`$ and $`happy`$ are false, then there is a mismatch with our understanding because neither the truth of $`unhappy`$ nor even the knowledge that $`unhappy`$ is true is a sufficient condition for happy being false. I.e. $`happy`$ should be unknown.
* On the other hand, if the model is interpreted as a belief set, there is again mismatch with our understanding because since $`wife\mathrm{\_}faithful`$ is unknown, then also $`unhappy`$ should be unknown.

Whether the model is interpreted as a possible state or as the belief set, it contains an error.

## Extending Logic Programming

This paper focuses on the original logic programming formalism with only the original negation as failure, and does not investigate its extensions with classical or strong negation. At this point, it is clear that there is natural reason for that. A point of this paper is exactly that in one commonsense view on logic programming, negation as failure is classical negation. It is clear then than in this view, the formalism cannot be further extended with another classical or strong negation. Extensions of logic programming with classical negation (including disjunctive logic programming) make sense only in the modal negation view on logic programs.

Logic programming extensions were designed as a way to solve a number of serious disadvantages of logic programming for knowledge representation. However, as argued in (?), the analysis of what are these disadvantages exactly, depends on the declarative reading one takes. Different declarative readings lead to different conclusions and more importantly they subsequently lead to different ways to different extensions of the formalism.

In the case of the modal views, the problem was the absence of classical negation. However, as argued in (?), the problem of logic programming under the definition view is that a logic program contains definitions for all predicates. For this reason, one should extend the formalism with the possibility of leaving certain predicates open. This view is further explored in (?).


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In a thin accretion disk, the time available for the accreting gas to radiate away the energy released by the viscous stress is the accretion time,

$$t_{\mathrm{acc}}\frac{1}{\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}}(\frac{r}{H})^2,$$
(1)
where $`\alpha `$ is the dimensionless viscosity parameter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}`$ the local Keplerian rotation rate, $`r`$ the distance from the central mass, and $`H`$ the disk thickness (see Frank et al. 1992 or Spruit, elsewhere in this volume). For a thin disk, $`H/r1`$, this time is much longer than the thermal time scale $`t_\mathrm{t}1/(\alpha \mathrm{\Omega })`$. There is then enough time for a local balance to exist between viscous dissipation and radiative cooling. For the accretion rates implied in observed systems the disk is then rather cool, and the starting assumption $`H/r1`$ is justified.

This argument is somewhat circular, however, since the accretion time is long enough for effective cooling only if the disk is assumed to be thin to begin with. Other forms of accretion disks may exist, even at the same accretion rates, in which the cooling is ineffective compared with that of standard (geometrically thin, optically thick) disks.

Since radiatively inefficient disks tend to be thick, $`H/rO(1)`$, they are sometimes called ‘quasi-spherical’. However, this does not mean that a spherically symmetric accretion model would be a reasonable approximation. The crucial difference is that the flow has angular momentum. The inward flow speed is governed by the rate at which angular momentum can be transferred outwards, rather than by gravity and pressure gradient. The accretion time scale, $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}1/(\alpha \mathrm{\Omega })`$ is longer than the accretion time scale in the spherical case (unless the viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ is as large as $`O(1)`$). The dominant velocity component is azimuthal rather than radial, and the density and optical depth are much larger than in the spherical case.

It turns out that there are two kinds of radiatively inefficient disks, the optically thin, and optically thick varieties. A second distinction occurs because accretion flows are different for central objects with a solid surface (neutron stars, white dwarfs, main sequence stars, planets), and those without (i.e. black holes). I start with optically thick flows.

## 2 Radiation supported advective accretion

If the energy loss by radiation is small, the gravitational energy release $`W_{\mathrm{grav}}GM/(2r)`$ is converted into enthalpy of the gas and radiation field111I assume here that a fraction $`0.5`$ of the gravitational potential energy stays in the flow as orbital kinetic energy. See also section 3.

$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{GM}{r}=\frac{1}{\rho }[\frac{\gamma }{\gamma 1}P_\mathrm{g}+4P_\mathrm{r}],$$
(2)
where an ideal gas of constant ratio of specific heats $`\gamma `$ has been assumed, and $`P_\mathrm{r}=\frac{1}{3}aT^4`$ is the radiation pressure. In terms of the virial temperature $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}=GM/(r)`$, and assuming $`\gamma =5/3`$, appropriate for a fully ionized gas, this can be written as

$$\frac{T}{T_{\mathrm{vir}}}=[5+8\frac{P_\mathrm{r}}{P_\mathrm{g}}]^1.$$
(3)
Thus, for radiation pressure dominated accretion, $`P_\mathrm{r}P_\mathrm{g}`$ , the temperature is much less than the virial temperature. The disk thickness is given by

$$H[(P_\mathrm{g}+P_\mathrm{r})/\rho ]^{1/2}/\mathrm{\Omega },$$
(4)
With (3) this yields

$$H/rO(1).$$
(5)
In the limit $`P_\mathrm{r}P_\mathrm{g}`$, the flow is therefore geometrically thick. This implies that radiation pressure supplies a non-negligible fraction of the support of the gas against gravity (the remainder being provided by rotation).

For $`P_\mathrm{r}P_\mathrm{g}`$, (2) yields

$$\frac{GM}{2r}=\frac{4}{3}\frac{aT^4}{\rho }.$$
(6)
The radiative energy flux, in the diffusion approximation, is

$$F=\frac{4}{3}\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}\tau }\sigma T^4\frac{4}{3}\frac{\sigma T^4}{\tau },$$
(7)
where $`\sigma =ac/4`$ is Stefan-Boltzmann’s radiation constant. Hence

$$F=\frac{1}{8}\frac{GM}{rH}\frac{c}{\kappa }=F_\mathrm{E}\frac{r}{8H},$$
(8)
where $`F_\mathrm{E}=L_\mathrm{E}/(4\pi r^2)`$ is the local Eddington flux. Since $`H/r1`$, a radiatively inefficient, radiation pressure dominated accretion flow has a luminosity of the order of the Eddington luminosity.

The temperature depends on the accretion rate and the viscosity $`\nu `$ assumed. The accretion rate is of the order $`\dot{M}3\pi \nu \mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (see ‘accretion disks’ elsewhere in this volume), where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\rho dz`$ is the surface mass density. In units of the Eddington rate, we get

$$\dot{m}\dot{M}/\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}\nu \rho \kappa /c,$$
(9)
where $`H/r1`$ has been used, and $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$ is the Eddington accretion rate onto the central object of size $`R`$,

$$\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}=\frac{R}{GM}L_\mathrm{E}=4\pi Rc/\kappa .$$
(10)
\[Note that the definition of $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$ differs by factors of order unity between different authors. It depends on the assumed efficiency $`\eta `$ of conversion of gravitational energy $`GM/R`$ into radiation. In (10) it is taken to be unity, for accretion onto black holes a more realistic value is $`\eta =0.1`$, for accretion onto neutron stars $`\eta 0.4`$.\]

Assume that the viscosity scales with the gas pressure:

$$\nu =\alpha \frac{P_\mathrm{g}}{\rho \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}},$$
(11)
instead of the total pressure $`P_\mathrm{r}+P_\mathrm{g}`$. This is the form that is likely to hold if the angular momentum transport is due to a small-scale magnetic field (Sakimoto and Coroniti, 1989). Then with (6) we have (up to a factor $`2H/rO(1)`$

$$T^5\frac{(GM)^{3/2}}{r^{5/2}}\frac{\dot{m}c}{\alpha \kappa a},$$
(12)
or

$$T\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}10}^8r_6^{1/5}(r/r_\mathrm{g})^{3/10}\dot{m}^{1/5},$$
(13)
where $`r=10^6r_6`$ and $`r_\mathrm{g}=2GM/c^2`$ is the gravitational radius of the accreting object, and the electron scattering opacity of 0.3 cm2/g has been assumed. The temperatures expected in radiation supported advection dominated flows are therefore quite low compared with the virial temperature \[If the viscosity is assumed to scale with the total pressure instead of $`P_\mathrm{g}`$, the temperature is even lower\]. The effect of electron-positron pairs can be neglected (Schultz and Price, 1985), since they are present only at temperatures approaching the electron rest mass energy, $`T>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^9`$K.

In order for the flow to be radiation pressure and advection dominated, the optical depth has to be sufficiently large so the radiation does not leak out. The energy density in the flow, vertically integrated at a distance $`r`$, is of the order

$$EaT^4H,$$
(14)
and the energy loss rate per cm2 of disk surface is given by (8). The cooling time is therefore,

$$t_\mathrm{c}=E/F=3\tau H/c.$$
(15)
This is to be compared with the accretion time, which can be written in terms of the mass in the disk at radius $`r`$, of the order $`2\pi r^2\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and the accretion rate:

$$t_{\mathrm{acc}}=2\pi r^2\mathrm{\Sigma }/\dot{M}.$$
(16)
This yields

$$t_\mathrm{c}/t_{\mathrm{acc}}\frac{\kappa }{\pi rc}\dot{M}=4\dot{m}\frac{R}{r},$$
(17)
(where a factor $`3/2H/rO(1)`$ has been neglected). Since $`r>R`$, this shows that accretion has to be super-Eddington in order to be both radiation- and advection-dominated.

This condition can also be expressed in terms of the so-called trapping radius $`r_\mathrm{t}`$ (e.g. Rees 1978). Equating $`t_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ and $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ yields

$$r_\mathrm{t}/R4\dot{m}.$$
(18)
Inside $`r_\mathrm{t}`$, the flow is advection dominated: the radiation field produced by viscous dissipation stays trapped inside the flow, instead of being radiated from the disk as happens in a standard thin disk. Outside the trapping radius, the radiation field can not be sufficiently strong to maintain a disk with $`H/r1`$, it must be a thin form of disk instead. Such a thin disk can still be radiation-supported (i.e. $`P_\mathrm{r}P_\mathrm{g}`$), but it can not be advection dominated.

Flows of this kind are called ‘radiation supported tori’ (or radiation tori, for short) by Rees et al. 1982222Some workers interpret the use of word ‘torus’ in the context radiatively inefficient accretion as implying a rotating but non-accreting flow. The physics studied by Rees et al. (1982), however, where this name was introduced, explicitly refers to accreting flows such as described here. They must accrete at a rate above the Eddington value to exist. The converse is not quite true: a flow accreting above Eddington is an advection dominated flow, but it need not necessarily be radiation dominated. Advection dominated optically thick acretion flows exist in which radiation does not play a major role (see section 3.1).

That an accretion flow above $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$ is advection dominated, not a thin disk, follows from the fact that in a thin disk the energy dissipated must be radiated away locally. Since the local radiative flux can not exceed the Eddington energy flux $`F_\mathrm{E}`$, the mass accretion rate in a thin disk can not significantly exceed the Eddington value (10).

The gravitational energy, dissipated by viscous stress in differential rotation and advected with the flow, ends up at the central object. If this is a black hole, the photons, particles and their thermal energy are conveniently swallowed at the horizon, and do not react back on the flow. Radiation tori are therefore mostly relevant for accretion onto black holes. They are convectively unstable (Bisnovatyi-Kogan and Blinnikov 1977): the way in which energy is dissipated, in the standard $`\alpha `$-prescription, is such that the entropy ($`T^3/\rho `$) decreases with height in the disk. Recent numerical simulations (see section 5) show the effects of this convection.

### 2.1 Super-Eddington accretion onto black holes

As the accretion rate onto a black hole is increased above $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$, the trapping radius moves out. The total luminosity increases only slowly, and remains of the order of the Eddington luminosity. Such supercritical accretion has been considered by Begelman and Meier (1982, see also Wang and Zhou 1999); they show that the flow has a radially self-similar structure.

Abramowicz et al. (1988, 1989) studied accretion onto black holes at rates near $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$. They used a vertically-integrated approximation for the disk, but included the advection terms. The resulting solutions were called ‘slim disks’. These models show how with increasing accretion rate, a standard thin Shakura-Sunyaev disk turns into a radiation-supported advection flow. The nature of the transition depends on the viscosity prescription used, and can show a non-monotonic dependence of $`\dot{M}`$ on surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (Honma et al. 1991). This suggests the possibility of instability and cyclic behavior of the inner disk near a black hole, at accretion rates near and above $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$ (for an application to GRS 1915+105 see Nayakshin et al., 1999).

### 2.2 Super-Eddington accretion onto neutron stars

In the case of accretion onto a neutron star, the energy trapped in the flow, plus the remaining orbital energy, settles onto its surface. If the accretion rate is below $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$, the energy can be radiated away by the surface, and steady accretion is possible. A secondary star providing the mass may, under some circumstances, transfer more than $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$, since it does not know about the neutron star’s Eddington value. The outcome of this case is still somewhat uncertain; it is generally believed on intuitive grounds that the ‘surplus’ (the amount above $`\dot{M}_\mathrm{E}`$) somehow gets expelled from the system.

As the transfer rate is increased, the accreting hot gas forms an extended atmosphere around the neutron star, like the envelope of a giant. If it is large enough, the outer parts of this envelope are partially ionized. The opacity in these layers, due to lines of the CNO and heavier elements, is then much higher than the electron scattering opacity. The Eddington luminosity based on the local value of the opacity is then smaller than it is near the neutron star surface. Once an extended atmosphere with a cool surface forms, the accretion luminosity is thus large enough to drive a wind from the envelope (see Kato 1997, where this is discussed in the context of Novae).

This scenario is somewhat dubious however, since it assumes that the mass transferred from the secondary continues to reach the neutron star and generate a high luminosity there. This is not at all obvious, since the mass transfering stream may dissipate in the growing neutron star envelope instead. The result would be a giant (more precisely, a Thorne-Zytkow star), with a steadily increasing envelope mass. Such an envelope is likely to be large enough to envelop the entire binary system, which then develops into a common-envelope (CE) system. The envelope mass is expected to be ejected by CE hydrodynamics (Taam 1994, 2000).

A more speculative proposal, suggested by the properties of SS 433, is that the ‘surplus mass’ is ejected in the form of jets. The binary parameters of Cyg X-2 are observational evidence for mass ejection in super-Eddington mass transfer phases (King and Ritter 1999, Rappaport and Podsiadlowski 1999, King and Begelman 1999).

## 3 Hydrodynamics

The hydrodynamics of ADAFs and radiation tori can be studied by starting, at a very simple level, with a generalization of the thin disk equations. Making the assumption that quantities integrated over the height $`z`$ of the disk give a fair representation (though this is justifiable only for thin disks), and assuming axisymmetry, the problem reduces to a one-dimensional time-dependent one. Further simplifying this by restriction to a steady flow yields the equations

$$2\pi r\mathrm{\Sigma }v_r=\dot{M}=\mathrm{cst},$$
(19)
$$r\mathrm{\Sigma }v_r_r(\mathrm{\Omega }r^2)=_r(\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }r^3_r\mathrm{\Omega }),$$
(20)
$$v_r_rv_r(\mathrm{\Omega }^2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}^2)r=\frac{1}{\rho }_rp,$$
(21)
$$\mathrm{\Sigma }v_rT_rS=q^+q^{},$$
(22)
where $`S`$ is the specific entropy of the gas, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ the local rotation rate, now different from the Keplerian rate $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}=(GM/r^3)^{1/2}`$, while

$$q^+=Q_\mathrm{v}dzq^{}=\mathrm{div}F_\mathrm{r}dz$$
(23)
are the height-integrated viscous dissipation rate and radiative loss rate, respectively. In the case of thin disks, equations (19) and (20) are unchanged, but (21) simplifies to $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}^2`$, i.e. the rotation is Keplerian, while (22) simplifies to $`q^+=q^{}`$, expressing local balance between viscous dissipation and cooling. The left hand side of (22) describes the radial advection of heat, and is perhaps the most important deviation from the thin disk equations at this level of approximation (hence the name advection dominated flows). The characteristic properties are seen most cearly when radiative loss is neglected altogether, $`q^{}=0`$. The equations are supplemented with expressions for $`\nu `$ and $`q^+`$:

$$\nu =\alpha c_\mathrm{s}^2/\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K};q^+=(r_r\mathrm{\Omega })^2\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }.$$
(24)
If $`\alpha `$ is taken constant, $`q^{}=0`$, and an ideal gas is assumed with constant ratio of specific heats, so that the entropy is given by

$$S=c_\mathrm{v}\mathrm{ln}(p/\rho ^\gamma ),$$
(25)
then equations (19)-(22) have no explicit length scale in them. This means that a special so-called self-similar solution exists, in which all quantities are powers of $`r`$. Such self-similar solutions have apparently first been described by Gilham (1981), but have since then been re-invented several times (Spruit et al. 1987; Narayan and Yi, 1994). The dependences on $`r`$ are

$$\mathrm{\Omega }r^{3/2};\rho r^{3/2},$$
(26)
$$Hr;Tr^1.$$
(27)
In the limit $`\alpha 1`$, one finds

$$v_r=\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}r\left(9\frac{\gamma 1}{5\gamma }\right),$$
(28)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}\left(2\frac{53\gamma }{5\gamma }\right)^{1/2},$$
(29)
$$c_\mathrm{s}^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{K}^2r^2\frac{\gamma 1}{5\gamma },$$
(30)
$$\frac{H}{r}=\left(\frac{\gamma 1}{5\gamma }\right)^{1/2}.$$
(31)
The precise from of these expressions depends somewhat on the way in which vertical integrations such as in (23) are done (which are only approximate).

The self-similar solution can be compared with numerical solutions of eqs. (19)–(22) with appropriate conditions applied at inner ($`r_\mathrm{i}`$) and outer ($`r_\mathrm{o}`$) boundaries (Nakamura et al. 1996, Narayan et al. 1997). The results show that the self-similar solution is valid in an intermediate regime $`r_\mathrm{i}rr_\mathrm{o}`$. That is, the solutions of (19)–(22) approach the self-similar solution far from the boundaries, as is characteristic of self-similar solutions.

The solution exists only if $`1<\gamma 5/3`$, a condition satisfied by all ideal gases. As $`\gamma 1`$, the disk temperature and thickness vanish. This is understandable, since a $`\gamma `$ close to 1 means that the gas has a large number of internal degrees of freedom. The accretion energy is shared between all degrees of freedom, so that for a low $`\gamma `$ less is available for the kinetic energy (temperature) of the particles.

Second, the rotation rate vanishes for $`\gamma 5/3`$. Since a fully ionized gas has $`\gamma =5/3`$, it is the most relevant value for optically thin accretion near a black hole or neutron star. Apparently, steady advection dominated accretion can not have angular momentum in this case, and the question arises how an adiabatic flow with angular momentum will behave for $`\gamma =5/3`$. In the literature, this problem has been circumvented by arguing that real flows would have magnetic fields in them, which would change the effective compressibility of the gas. Even if a magnetic field of sufficient strength is present, however, (energy density comparable to the gas pressure) the effective $`\gamma `$ is not automatically lowered. If the field is compressed mainly perpendicular to the field lines, for example, the effective $`\gamma `$ is closer to 2. Also, this does not solve the conceptual problem what would happen to a rotating accretion flow consisting of a more weakly magnetized ionized gas.

This conceptual problem has been solved by Ogilvie (1999), who showed how the low rotation for $`\gamma =5/3`$ comes about in a time-dependent manner. He found a similarity solution (depending on distance and time in the combination $`r/t^{2/3}`$) to the time-dependent version of eqs (19)–(22). This solution describes the asymptotic behavior (in time) of a viscously spreading disk, analogous to the viscous spreading of thin disks (Lynden-Bell and Pringle 1972). As in the thin disk case, all the mass accretes asymptotically onto the central mass, while all the angular momentum travels to infinity together with a vanishing amount of mass. For all $`\gamma <5/3`$, the rotation rate at a fixed $`r`$ tends to a finite value as $`t\mathrm{}`$, but for $`\gamma =5/3`$ it tends to zero. The slowly-rotating region expands in size as $`rt^{2/3}`$. It thus seems likely that the typical slow rotation of ADAFs at $`\gamma `$ near 5/3 is a real physical property, and that the angular momentum gets expelled from the inner regions of the flow.

### 3.1 Other optically thick accretion flows

The radiation-dominated flows discussed in section 2 are not the only possible optically thick advection dominated flows. From the discussion of the hydrodynamics, it is clear that disk-like (i.e. rotating) accretion is possible whenever the ratio of specific heats is less than 5/3. A radiation supported flow satisfies this requirement with $`\gamma =4/3`$, but it can also happen in the absence of radiation if energy is taken up in the gas by internal degrees of freedom of the particles. Examples are the rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom in molecules, and the energy associated with dissociation and ionization. If the accreting object has a gravitational potential not much exceeding the 13.6 + 2.2 eV per proton for dissociation plus ionization, a gas initially consisting of molecular hydrogen can stay bound at arbitrary accretion rates. This translates into a limit $`M/M_{}R_{}/R<0.01`$. This is satisfied approximately by the giant planets, which are believed to have gone through a phase of rapid adiabatic gas accretion (e.g. Podolak et al. 1993).

A more remotely related example is the core-collapse supernova. The accretion energy of the envelope mass falling onto the proto-neutron star is lost mostly through photodisintegration of nuclei, causing the well known problem of explaining how a shock is produced of sufficient energy to unbind the envelope. If the pre-collapse core rotates sufficiently rapidly, the collapse will form an accretion torus (inside the supernova envelope), with properties similar to advection dominated accretion flows (but at extreme densities and accretion rates, by X-ray binary standards). Such objects have been invoked as sources of Gamma-ray bursts (Popham et al. 1999, see also the review by Meszaros, elsewhere in this volume).

A final possibility for optically thick accretion is through neutrino losses. If the temperature and density near an accreting neutron star become large enough, additional cooling takes place through neutrinos (as in the cores of giants). This is relevant for the physics of Thorne-Zytkow stars (neutron stars or black holes in massive supergiant envelopes, cf. Bisnovatyi-Kogan and Lamzin 1984, Cannon et al. 1992), and perhaps for the spiral-in of neutron stars into giants (Chevalier 1993, see however Taam 2000).

## 4 Optically thin advection dominated flows (ADAFs)

The optically thin case has received most attention in recent years, because of the promise it holds for explaining the (radio to X-ray) spectra of X-ray binaries and the central black holes in galaxies, including our own. For a recent review see Yi (1999). This kind of flow occurs if the gas is optically thin, and radiation processes sufficiently weak. The gas then heats up to near the virial temperature. Near the last stable orbit of a black hole, this is of the order 100 MeV, or $`10^{12}`$K. At such temperatures, a gas in thermal equilibrium would radiate at a fantastic rate, even if it were optically thin, because the interaction between electrons and photons becomes very strong already near the electron rest mass of 0.5MeV. In a remarkable paper, Shapiro Lightman and Eardley (1976) noted that this, however, is not what will happen in an optically thin accreting plasma but that, instead, a two-temperature plasma forms.

Suppose that the energy released by viscous dissipation is distributed equally among the carriers of mass, i.e. mostly to the ions and $`1/2000`$ to the electrons. Most of the energy resides in the ions, which radiate very inefficiently (their high mass prevents the rapid accelerations that are needed to produce electromagnetic radiation). This energy is transfered to the electrons by Coulomb interactions. These interactions are slow, however, under the conditions mentioned. They are slow because of the low density (on account of the assumed optical tickness), and because they decrease with increasing temperature. The electric forces that transfer energy from an ion to an electron act only as long as the ion is within the electron’s Debye sphere (e.g. Spitzer, 1965). The interaction time between proton and electron, and thus the momentum transfered, therefore decrease as $`1/v_\mathrm{p}T_\mathrm{p}^{1/2}`$ where $`T_\mathrm{p}`$ is the proton temperature.

In this way, an optically thin plasma near a compact object can be in a two-temperature state, with the ions being near the virial temperature, and the electrons, which are doing the radiating, at a much lower temperature around 50–200 keV. The energy transfer from the gravitational field to the ions is fast (by some form of viscous or magnetic dissipation), from the ions to the electrons slow, and finally the energy losses of the electrons fast (by synchrotron radiation in a magnetic field or by inverse Compton scattering of soft photons). Such a flow would be radiatively inefficient since the receivers of the accretion energy, the ions, get swallowed by the hole before getting a chance to transfer their energy to the electrons. The first disk models which take into account the physics of advection and a two-temperature plasma were developed by Ichimaru (1977).

It is clear from this description that both the physics of such flows and the radiation spectrum to be expected depend crucially on the details of the ion-electron interaction and radiation processes assumed. This is unlike the case of the optically thick advection dominated flows, where gas and radiation are in approximate thermodynamic equilibrium. This is a source of uncertainty in the application of the optically thin ADAFs to observed systems, since their radiative properties depend on poorly known quantities, for example, the strength of the magnetic field in the flow.

The various branches of optically thin and thick accretion flows are summarized in figure 1. Each defines a relation between surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (or optical depth $`\tau =\kappa \mathrm{\Sigma }`$) and accretion rate. Optically thin ADAFs require low densities, either because of low accretion rates or large values of the viscosity parameter. The condition that the cooling time of the ions by energy transfer to the electrons is longer than the accretion time yields a maximum accretion rate (Rees et al. 1982),

$$\dot{m}<\alpha ^2.$$
(32)
If $`\alpha 0.05`$ as suggested by current simulations of magnetic turbulence, the maximum accretion rate would be a few $`10^3`$. If ADAFs are to be applicable to systems with higher accretion rates, such as Cyg X-1 for example, the viscosity parameter must be larger, on the order of 0.3.

### 4.1 Application: hard spectra in X-ray binaries

In the hard state, the X-ray spectrum of black hole and neutron star accreters is characterized by a peak in the energy distribution ($`\nu F_\nu `$ or $`EF(E)`$) at photon energies around 100 keV. This is to be compared with the typical photon energy of $`1`$ keV expected from a standard optically thick thin disk accreting near the Eddington limit. The standard, and by far most likely explanation is that the observed hard photons are softer photons (around 1 keV) that have been up-scattered through inverse Compton scattering on hot electrons. Fits of such Comptonized spectra (e.g. Zdziarski 1998 and references therein) yield an electron scattering optical depth around unity and an electron temperature of 50–100 keV. The scatter in these parameters is rather small between different sources. The reason may lie in part in the physics of Comptonization, but is not fully understood either. Something in the physics of the accretion flow keeps the Comptonization parameters constant as long as it is in the hard state. ADAFs have been applied with some success in interpreting XRB. They can produce reasonable X-ray spectra, and have been used in interpretations of the spectral-state transitions in sources like Cyg X-1 (Esin et al. 1998 and references therein).

An alternative to the ADAF model for the hard state in sources like Cyg X-1 and the black hole X-ray transients is the ‘corona’ model. A hot corona (Bisnovatyi-Kogan and Blinnikov 1976), heated perhaps by magnetic fields as in the case of the Sun (Galeev et al. 1979) could be the medium that Comptonizes soft photons radiated from the cool disk underneath. The energy balance in such a model produces a Comptonized spectrum within the observed range (Haardt and Maraschi 1993). This model has received further momentum, especially as a model for AGN, with the discovery of broadened X-ray lines indicative of the presence of a cool disk close to the last stable orbit around a black hole (Lee et al. 1999 and references therein). The very rapid X-ray variability seen in some of these sources is interpreted as due magnetic flaring in the corona, like in the solar corona (e.g. Di Matteo et al. 1999a).

### 4.2 Transition from thin disk to ADAF

One of the difficulties in applying ADAFs to specific observed systems is the transition from a standard geometrically thin, optically thick disk, which must be the mode of mass transfer at large distances, to an ADAF at closer range. This is shown by figure 1, which illustrates the situation at some distance close to the central object. The standard disk and the optically thin branches are separated from each other for all values of the viscosity parameter. This separation of the optically thin solutions also holds at larger distances. Thus, there is no plausible continuous path from one to the other, and the transition between the two must be due to additional physics that is not included in diagrams like figure 1.

A promising possibility is that the transition takes place through a gradual (as a function of radius) evaporation (Meyer and Meyer-Hofmeister 1994, Meyer-Hofmeister and Meyer 1999). In this scenario, evaporation initially produces a corona above the disk, which transforms into an ADAF further in.

### 4.3 Quiescent galactic nuclei

For very low accretion rates, such as inferred for the black hole in the center of our galaxy (identified with the radio source Sgr A\*), the broad band spectral energy distribution of an ADAF is predicted to have two humps (Narayan et al. 1995, Quataert et al. 1999). In the X-ray range, the emission is due to bremsstrahlung. In the radio range, the flow emits synchrotron radiation, provided that the magnetic field in the flow has an energy density order of the gas pressure (‘equipartition’). Synthetic ADAF spectra can be fitted to the observed radio and X-ray emission from Sgr A\*. In other galaxies where a massive central black hole is inferred, and the center is populated by an X-ray emitting gas of known density, ADAFs would also be natural, and might explain why the observed luminosities are so low compared with the accretion rate expected for a hole embedded in a gas of the measured density. In some of these galaxies, however, the peak in the radio-to-mm range predicted by analogy with Sgr A\* is not observed (Di Matteo et al. 1999b). This requires an additional hypothesis, for example that the magnetic field in these cases is much lower, or that the accretion energy is carried away by an outflow.

### 4.4 Transients in quiescence

X-ray transients in quiescence (i.e. after an outburst) usually show a very low X-ray luminosity. The mass transfer rate from the secondary in quiescence can be inferred from the optical emission. This shows the characteristic ‘hot spot’, known from other systems to be the location where the mass transfering stream impacts on the edge of an accretion disk (e.g. van Paradijs and McClintock 1995). These observations thus show that a disk is present in quiescence, while the mass transfer rate can be measured from the brightness of the hot spot. If this disk were to extend to the neutron star with constant mass flux, the predicted X-ray luminosity would be much higher than observed. This has traditionally been interpreted as a consequence of the fact that in transient systems, the accretion is not steady. Mass is stored in the outer parts and released by a disk instability (e.g. King 1995, Meyer-Hofmeister and Meyer 1999) producing the X-ray outburst. During quiescence, the accretion rate onto the compact object is much smaller than the mass transfer from the secondary to the disk.

ADAFs have been invoked as an alternative explanation. The quiescent accretion rate onto the central object is proposed to be higher than in the disk-instability explanation, the greater energy release being hidden on account of the low radiative efficiency of the ADAF. Some transient systems have neutron star primaries, with a hard surface at which the energy accreted by the ADAF must somehow be radiated away. A neutron star, with or without ADAFs, can not accrete in a radiatively inefficient way. In order to make ADAFs applicable, it has been proposed that the neutron stars in these systems have a modest magnetic dipole moment, such that in quiescence the gas in the accretion disk is prevented, by the ‘propeller effect’ (Illarionov and Sunyaev 1975, Sunyaev and Shakura 1977) from accreting onto the star.

### 4.5 ADAF-disk interaction: Lithium

One of the strong predictions of ADAF models, whether for black holes or neutron stars, is that the accreting plasma in the inner regions has an ion temperature of 10–100 MeV. Nearby is a cool and dense accretion disk feeding this plasma. If only a small fraction of the hot ion plasma gets in contact with the disk, the intense irradiation by ions will produce nuclear reactions (Aharonian and Sunyaev 1984, Martín et al. 1992). The main effects would be spallation of CNO elements into Li and Be, and the release of neutrons by various reactions. In this context, it is intriguing that the secondaries of both neutron star and black hole accreters have high overabundances of Li compared with other stars of their spectral types (Martín et al. 1992, 1994a). If a fraction of the disk material is carried to the secondary by a disk wind, the observed Li abundances may be accounted for (Martín et al. 1994b).

### 4.6 ADAF-disk interaction: hard X-spectra

The interaction of a hot ion plasma with the cool disk produces a surface layer heated by the incident ions through Coulomb interactions with the electron gas in the disk. Its thickness and temperature turn out to be largely self-regulating: the energy balance is as in the Haardt and Maraschi corona models (in which the interaction is by photons only), while the optical thickness self-regulates through the dependence of the ion penetration depth on the electron temperature. This model (Spruit 1997) produces hard comptonized X-ray spectra whose shape is largely independent of both the energy flux and distance from the central object.

## 5 Outflows?

The energy density in an advection dominated accretion flow is of the same order as the gravitational binding energy density $`GM/r`$, since a significant fraction of that energy went into internal energy of the gas by viscous dissipation, and little of it got lost by radiation. The gas is therefore only marginally bound in the gravitational potential. This suggests that perhaps a part of the accreting gas can escape, producing an outflow or wind. In the case of the ion supported optically thin ADAFs, this wind would be thermally driven by the temperature of the ions, like an ‘evaporation’ from the accretion torus. In the case of the radiation supported tori, which exist only at a luminosity near the Eddington value, but with much lower temperatures than the ion tori, winds driven by radiation pressure could exist.

The possibility of outflows is enhanced by the viscous energy transport through the disk. In the case of thin accretion disks (not quite appropriate in the present case, but sufficient to demonstrate the effect), the local rate of gravitational energy release (erg cm-2s-1) is $`W=\mathrm{\Sigma }v_r_r(GM/r)`$. The local viscous dissipation rate is $`(9/4)\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$. They are related by

$$Q_\mathrm{v}=3[1(\frac{r_\mathrm{i}}{r})^{1/2}]W,$$
(33)
where $`r_\mathrm{i}`$ is the inner edge of the disk (see ‘accretion disks’ elsewhere in this volume). The viscous dissipation rate is less than the gravitational energy release for $`r<(4/9)r_\mathrm{i}`$, and larger outside this radius. Part of the gravitational energy released in the inner disk is transported outward by the viscous stresses, so that the energy deposited in the gas is up to three times larger than expected from a local energy balance argument. The temperatures in an ADAF would be correspondingly larger. Begelman and Blandford (1999) have appealed to this effect to argue that in an ADAF most of the accreting mass of a disk might be expelled through a wind, the energy needed for this being supplied by the viscous energy transport associated with the small amount of mass that actually accretes.

These suggestions are in principle testable, since the arguments are about two-dimensional time dependent flows (axisymmetric), which can be studied fairly well by numerical simulation. Igumenshchev et al. (1996), and Igumenshchev and Abramowicz (1999) present results of such simulations, but unfortunately these give a somewhat ambiguous answer to the question. For large viscosity ($`\alpha 0.3`$) no outflow is seen, but for small viscosity time dependent flows are seen with outflows in some regions. Some of these flows may be a form of convection and unrelated to systematic outflows.