# Disk Accretion onto Magnetized Neutron Stars: The Inner Disk Radius and Fastness Parameter

## 1 Introduction

Interaction between a magnetized, rotating star and a surrounding accretion disk has been of continued interest since the discovery of X-ray pulsars in binary systems (Giacconi et al. 1971, etc). Its solution may hold the key to understanding fundamental problems such as structure and dynamics of magnetized accretion disks, angular momentum exchange between the disk and the star, etc, in a variety of astrophysical systems, including cataclysmic variables, X-ray binaries, T Tauri stars and active galactic nuclei. A detail model for the disk-star interaction was first developed by Ghosh & Lamb (1979a, 1979b), who argued that the stellar magnetic field penetrates the disk via Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, turbulent diffusion and reconnection, producing a broad transition zone joining the unperturbed disk flow far from the star to the magnetospheric flow near the star. The transition zone is composed of two qualitatively different regions, a broad outer zone where the angular velocity is nearly Keplerian and a narrow inner zone or boundary layer where it departs significantly from the Keplerian value. The total torque $`N`$ exerted on the star with mass $`M`$ is then divided into two separate components:

$$N=N_{\mathrm{in}}+N_{\mathrm{out}},$$
(1)   
where the subscript represents the appropriate zone in the disk. The “material” torque of the (inner) accretion flow is

$$N_{\mathrm{in}}N_0=\dot{M}R_0^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}},$$
(2)   
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}(GM/R_0^2)`$ is the angular velocity of disk plasma at the magnetospheric radius $`R_0`$ (G is the gravitation constant), and $`\dot{M}`$ is the accretion rate. Here we have adopted cylindrical coordinate $`(R,\varphi ,z)`$ centered on the star and the disk is assumed to be located on the $`z=0`$ plane, which is perpendicular to the star’s spin and magnetic axes. The torque in the outer zone supplied by the Maxwell stress is given by

$$N_{\mathrm{out}}=_{R_0}^{\mathrm{}}B_\varphi B_\mathrm{z}R^2dR,$$
(3)   
where $`B_\varphi `$ is the azimuthal field component generated by shear motion between the disk and the vertical field component $`B_\mathrm{z}`$. The torque $`N_{\mathrm{out}}`$ can be positive and negative depending on the value of the “fastness parameter” $`\omega _\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}=(R_0/R_\mathrm{c})^{3/2}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ is the angular velocity of the star and $`R_\mathrm{c}(GM/\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}^2)^{1/3}`$ is the corotation radius.

Inside the magnetospheric boundary, the magnetic stress dominates the rotation of disk plasma, and forces it to corotate with the magnetosphere at the radius $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1According to Spruit & Taam (1990), the accreting gas, nearly corotating with the star, could drift further inward across the field by an interchange instability.. To understand how far the disk can extend into the stellar magnetosphere and how the torque is transferred to the star, it is necessary to obtain the solutions of the structure of the magnetosphere. Ghosh & Lamb (1979a) suggested that $`R_0`$ and $`\delta `$ be constrained by the following relation

$$(RB_\mathrm{z}B_\varphi /4\pi )_02\pi R_02\delta \dot{M}(R\mathrm{\Delta }v_\varphi )_0$$
(4)   
(the subscript 0 denotes quantities evaluated at $`R=R_0`$), which follows the equation of angular momentum conservation, though contribution from gas funnel flow to angular momentum transfer has not been included. Ghosh & Lamb (1979a) also assumed a priori that $`\delta `$ corresponds to the electromagnetic screening length, and is much smaller than $`R_0`$. To testify the self-consistency of this assumption, from equation (4) we derive $`\delta (R_0/R_\mathrm{A})^{7/2}R_0`$ when $`\omega _\mathrm{s}1`$, where $`R_\mathrm{A}`$ is the conventional Alfv́en radius in spherical accretion. If $`R_00.5R_\mathrm{A}`$ as obtained by Ghosh & Lamb (1979a), then indeed $`\delta R_0`$. However, if $`R_0R_\mathrm{A}`$ as suggested by some recent investigations (e.g., Arons 1993; Ostriker & Shu 1995; Wang 1996; Li 1997), $`\delta `$ will be as large as $`R_0`$.

Li, Wickramasinghe & Rüdiger (1996) have presented a class of funnel flow solutions in which the angular momentum is carried by the matter. These authors argue that for an ideally conducting star, the stellar boundary condition requires the toroidal field be very small and most of the angular momentum of the matter in the funnel be propagated back to the disk rather to the star. Li & Wickramasinghe (1997) show that a consequence of this result is that the true inner disk radius $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ could be much smaller than $`R_0`$, with $`R_{\mathrm{in}}/R_0`$ as low as $`0.10.2`$ in slow rotator case, and the values of the critical fastness parameter at which the net torque vanishes would also change. This “torqueless” suggestion was criticized by Wang (1997), who points out that a small toroidal field is enough to produce a significant torque on the star, and that the viscous stress is unable to remove angular momentum back outwards from the inner edge of the accretion disk.

This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, based on Wang’s (1997) arguments, we calculate the lower limit of $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ that is required for efficient angular momentum transfer, and find it to be at least $`0.8R_0`$, implying that $`R_0`$ is a good indicator of the inner edge of the disk. In section 3 we discuss the possibility of inefficient angular momentum transfer, which is likely to occur in LMXBs, and the implications for the resulting variation in the fastness parameter. We conclude in section 4.

## 2 The inner disk radius

An estimation of $`R_0`$ can be obtained by setting the magnetic stress equal to the rate at which angular momentum is removed in the disk (Wang 1987)

$$(R^2B_\varphi B_\mathrm{z})_0=[\dot{M}\frac{\mathrm{d}(R^2\mathrm{\Omega })}{\mathrm{d}R}]_0,$$
(5)   
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }(R)`$ is the angular velocity of disk plasma. Following Li & Wang (1996), we assume that $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R)`$ reaches its maximum at $`R=R_0`$, i.e, $`(\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{d}R)_0=0`$, with $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R_0)\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}`$, and rewrite equation (5) as

$$\frac{B_{\varphi }^{}{}_{0}{}^{}B_{\mathrm{z}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}}{\dot{M}(GMR_0)^{1/2}}=\frac{2}{R_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}}.$$
(6)   
The torque $`N_{\mathrm{in}}`$ in equation (1) in fact contains two components: the real material torque $`N_\mathrm{f}`$ in the funnel flow, and the magnetospheric torque $`N_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ arising from the shearing motion between the corotating magnetosphere and the non-Keplerian disk boundary layer, i.e.,

$`N_{\mathrm{in}}`$ $`=`$ $`N_\mathrm{f}+N_{\mathrm{mag}}`$ (7)   
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{kR_0}^{R_0}}\frac{\mathrm{d}\dot{M}}{\mathrm{d}R}R^2\mathrm{\Omega }dR{\displaystyle _{kR_0}^{R_0}}B_\varphi B_\mathrm{z}R^2dR,`$   
where $`k=R_{\mathrm{in}}/R_0`$.

We first consider the second term on the righ-hand side of equation (7). In estimating the toroidal magnetic filed $`B_\varphi `$, we assume as usual that $`B_\varphi `$ is generated by the shearing between the disk and the stellar magnetosphere, and the growth of $`B_\varphi `$ is limited by diffusive decay due to turbulent mixing within the disk (e.g., Campbell 1992; Yi 1995; Wang 1995)

$$\frac{B_\varphi }{B_\mathrm{z}}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Omega }}.$$
(8)   
Several different phenomenological descriptions of disk-magnetosphere interaction (Wang 1995) cause little practical differences to our conclusions. Assuming that $`B_\mathrm{z}`$ follows a dipolar field and using equations (6) and (8), we may write the magnetospheric spin-up torque into dimensionless form as

$$\xi _{\mathrm{mag}}=\frac{N_{\mathrm{mag}}}{N_0}=\frac{4\omega _{\mathrm{s}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{3(1\omega _\mathrm{s})}_{k^{3/2}\omega _\mathrm{s}}^{\omega _\mathrm{s}}[1(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{\Omega })]y^3dy,$$
(9)   
where $`y=(R/R_\mathrm{c})^{3/2}`$.

In the first term on the righ-hand side of equation (7), $`\frac{\mathrm{d}\dot{M}}{\mathrm{d}R}`$ denotes the vertical mass loss rate from the boundary layer. This can be described by the equation (e.g., Ghosh & Lamb 1979a)

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}\dot{M}}{\mathrm{d}R}=4\pi R\rho c_\mathrm{s}g(R),$$
(10)   
scaling the vertical flow velocity from the boundary layer in terms of the local sound speed $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ and introducing a “gate” function $`g(R)`$ describing the radial profile of mass loss out of the boundary layer ($`\rho `$ is the mass density). To keep things simple, we assume $`g(R)=0`$ outside $`R_0`$, and $`g(R)=1`$ when $`R_{\mathrm{in}}RR_0`$. Assuming that the disk plasma around $`R_0`$ is thermally supported and optically thick to Thomson scattering (appropriate for a binary X-ray pulsar), from the $`\alpha `$-disk model of Shakura & Sunyaev (1973), we obtain $`\frac{\mathrm{d}\dot{M}}{\mathrm{d}R}R^1`$ or $`\frac{\mathrm{d}\dot{M}}{\mathrm{d}R}=\frac{\dot{M}}{(\mathrm{log}k)R}`$, which leads to

$$\xi _\mathrm{f}=\frac{N_\mathrm{f}}{N_0}=\frac{1}{(\mathrm{log}k)}_{kR_0}^{R_0}(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}})\frac{R}{R_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}dR.$$
(11)   
For generality, we have also assumed $`\frac{\mathrm{d}\dot{M}}{\mathrm{d}R}=const`$, and found that the results do not change significantly.

The value of $`k`$ can be obtained by setting $`\xi =\xi _\mathrm{f}+\xi _{\mathrm{mag}}=1`$. From equations (9) and (11) it can be seen that the magnitude of $`k`$ depends on the detail profile of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R)`$ between $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ and $`R_0`$, which is unknown before solving the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations. A lower limit of $`k`$, however, can be estimated in the following way. Because of the steep radial dependence of the stellar magnetic field ($`B_\mathrm{z}R^3`$), the slope of the angular velocity $`\frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }}{\mathrm{d}R}`$ should increase from 0 at $`R_0`$ to a large value at $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$. This requires that, in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R)\mathrm{vs}.R`$ diagram (Figure 1a) $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R)`$ should always lie beyond the dashed line which represents a linear relation between $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`R`$. As we know from equations (9) and (11), the larger $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the larger the $`\xi `$, and the smaller the $`\delta `$ required. So the smallest $`k`$ corresponds to the extreme case that $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R)`$ decreases linearly from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{s}`$ between $`R_0`$ and $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$, i.e.,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(R)=aR+b,$$
(12)   
where

$$a=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}}{R_0}\frac{(1\omega _\mathrm{s})}{(1k)},$$
(13)   
and

$$b=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}\frac{(\omega _\mathrm{s}k)}{(1k)}.$$
(14)   
In Figure 1b we plot the calculated values of $`k`$ as a function of the fastness parameter $`\omega _\mathrm{s}`$ in the dashed curve. It is seen that $`k`$ naturally reaches 1 when $`\omega _\mathrm{s}=1`$, but remains $`0.8`$ within a large range of $`\omega _\mathrm{s}`$. The solid curves in Figure 1a and 1b represent an example with more practical boundary conditions, which are always located above the dashed curves.

## 3 The fastness parameter

Our calculations in last section are based on the assumption that a torque of order $`\dot{M}R_0^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{k0}}`$ can be efficiently transmited to the star by both the gas funnel flow and the magnetic stress. It has been suggested that (Shu et al. 1994; Ostriker & Shu 1995; Li, Wickramasinghe, & Rüdiger 1996) a star may accrete matter from a magnetically truncated Keplerian disk without experiencing any spin-up torque, because it would require the surface magnetic field to have a large azimuthal twist which would lead to dynamical instabilities. Wang (1997) estimated the azimuthal pitch $`\gamma _{}`$ at the stellar surface required to transmit this torque to be

$$\gamma _{}\frac{B_\varphi }{B_\mathrm{z}}\frac{\xi }{2^{3/2}}(\frac{R_{}}{R_0})^{3/2}\frac{R_0}{\delta },$$
(15)   
where the subscript asterisk denotes quantities at the stellar surface. Since MHD instabilities are expected to occur only when $`|\gamma _{}|\stackrel{>}{}1`$, one sees that, with $`\delta \stackrel{<}{}0.2R_0`$ and $`\xi 1`$, $`\gamma _{}`$ could be much less than unity if $`R_{}R_0`$. This condition is satisfied by binary X-ray pulsars, which generally possess surface magnetic fields as strong as $`10^{12}10^{13}`$ G, and hence $`R_010^810^9`$ cm with the mass accretion rates of $`10^{16}10^{18}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{s}^1`$, much larger than $`R_{}10^6`$ cm. Thus the standard accretion disk models based on Ghosh & Lamb (1979a, 1979b) are suitable for these systems, and the value of the critical fastness parameter $`\omega _\mathrm{c}`$, according to Wang (1995) and Li & Wang (1996), may lie between $`0.7`$ and 0.95.

There could exist possibility of an accreting star unable to absorb the excess angular momentum at $`R_0`$. This may occur in accreting neutron stars in LMXBs, in which the condition $`|\gamma _{}|1`$ may not hold unless $`\xi 0`$, because the surface field strengths in these neutron stars are so low ($`10^810^9`$ G or lower) that the accretion disk usually extends close to the star’s surface, i.e., $`R_0R_{}`$. Since MHD instabilies prevent transmission of the torque of $`N_{\mathrm{in}}`$, in this case the star only experiences the magnetic torque $`N_{\mathrm{out}}`$, and the critical fastness parameter decreases to $`0.40.6`$ (Li & Wickramasinghe 1997). Note that the angular momentum of the material at $`R_0`$ cannot be transported from the boundary layer to the outer parts of the disk by either viscous stress or a stellar magnetic field threading the inner region of the disk (Wang 1997), it is more likely to be removed by a magnetocentrifugal wind. During wind mass loss, some angular momentum of the star could also be lost, equivalent to an extra braking torque exerted on the star, so that the critical fastness parameter would be even smaller.

Observational evidence for the above arguments comes from kiloHertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) recently discovered with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) in some 16 neutron star LMXBs (see van der Klis 1997 for a review). These kHz QPOs are characterized by their high levels of coherence (with quality factors $`Q\nu /\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ up to $`200`$), large rms amplitudes (up to several $`10\%`$), and wide span of frequencies ($`3001200`$ Hz), which, in most cases, are strongly correlated with X-ray fluxes. In many cases, two simultaneous kHz peaks are observed in the power spectra of the X-ray count rate variations, with the separation frequency roughly constant (e.g., Strohmayer et al. 1996; Ford et al. 1997; Wijnands et al. 1997). Sometimes a third kHz peak is detected in a few atoll sources during type I X-ray bursts at a frequency equal to the separation frequency of the two peaks (Strohmayer et al. 1996; Ford et al. 1997) or twice that (Wijnands & van der Klis 1997; Smith, Morgan & Bradt 1997). This strongly suggests a beat-frequency interpretation, with the third peak at the neutron star spin frequency (or twice that), the upper kHz peak at the Keplerian orbital frequency at a preferred radius around the neutron star, and the lower kHz peak at the difference frequency between them<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2The applicability of such a model is less clear when the difference frequency is not constant as in the Z source Sco X-1 and possibly the atoll source 4U 1608-52; see van der Klis et al. (1996) and Méndez et al. (1998).. If the upper kHz QPOs are associated with the orbital frequency at the magnetospheric radius or the sonic point in the accretion disk (Strohmayer et al. 1996; Miller et al. 1998; see also Lai 1998), one would expect that the disk can extend towards the marginally stable orbit of a neutron star.

As pointed by Zhang et al. (1997) and White & Zhang (1997), these neutron stars may have accreted a considerable amount of mass, so they possibly have reached the equilibrium spin. The measured spin and QPO frequencies of these neutron stars reveal the critical fastness parameter $`\omega _\mathrm{c}`$ lying between $``$ 0.2 and 0.7. Additionally, considering the spin and orbital evolution in low-mass binary pulsars which are thought to originate from LMXBs, Burderi et al. (1996) also found a small value of $`\omega _\mathrm{c}0.1`$ from the observed relation between spin period, magnetic field and orbital period. Though subject to both observational and theoretical uncertainties, these results do indicate a smaller fastness parameter than predicted by current theory for binary X-ray pulsars.

## 4 Conclusions

We summarize our results as follows: (1) The inner disk radius $`R_{\mathrm{in}}`$ is always close to the magnetospheric radius $`R_0`$. (2) For binary X-ray pulsars, the critical fastness parameter lies in the rang $`0.710.95`$; neutron stars in LMXBs may not absorb angular momentum flux at $`R_0`$ as efficiently as X-ray pulsars, resulting in a critical fastness parameter considerably smaller than in X-ray pulsars.

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China.