# GLOBAL DYNAMICS OF ADVECTION-DOMINATED ACCRETION REVISITED

## 1 Introduction

Accretion of rotating matter onto a compact object powers many energetic astrophysical systems such as cataclysmic variables, X-ray binaries, and active galactic nuclei. In order to explain the observational radiative output of these systems, a full understanding of the global structure and dynamical behavior of accretion flows is of fundamental importance. Here the word ’global’ means the entire region of the flow, i.e. from the place where accretion starts till the surface of the compact object. The detailed microphysics of radiative cooling processes, although necessary for calculating the emission characteristics, may or may not significantly affect the flow dynamics, depending on whether the cooling is efficient or not.

The birth of modern accretion disk theory is traditionally attributed to the model of Shakura & Sunyaev (1973). In this model the accretion flow was considered to be geometrically thin (equivalently, thermally cool, cf. eq.  below), optically thick, Keplerian rotating, and radially highly subsonic. Such a simple model has been very successful, particularly for the case of unmagnetized white dwarf accretion, i.e. in cataclysmic variables (see Frank, King, & Raine 1992 for a review). The reason for this fact is that the gravitational potential well of a white dwarf is not very deep, thus the radial velocity of the accreted matter is small, and the temperature is low (both the kinetic energy and the thermal energy are converted from the gravitational energy); such a physical situation just meets the basic assumptions of Shakura & Sunyaev model, and the model in turn provides an excellent description of the global structure and dynamics of the white dwarf accretion disk.

However, black hole accretion must be transonic, i.e. the radial velocity must be important in the region near the black hole, and some or even almost all the energy and entropy of the accreted matter can be advected into the hole, rather than being radiated away from the surface of the flow (neutron star accretion could be either transonic or entirely subsonic). Such a transonic or advective feature cannot be reflected by Shakura & Sunyaev model at all, and adequate models should be developed. There are two known regimes in which the radiative cooling is very inefficient and most of the dissipated energy is advected into the black hole, namely, when the mass accretion rate is very high and the flow is optically thick, and when the accretion rate is very low and the flow is optically thin. The resulting so-called advection- dominated accretion flows (ADAF) have been a very attractive subject for the recent years, especially because of promising applications of the optically thin ADAF model to explaining properties of X-ray transients, the Galactic center, low luminosity active galactic nuclei, and some other high energy objects (see Narayan, Mahadevan, & Quataert 1998 for a review). In particular, a number of papers have been devoted to the study of global solutions of ADAF (Matsumoto, Kato, & Fukue 1985; Abramowicz et al. 1988; Honma, Matsumoto, & Kato 1991; Chen & Taam 1993; Abramowicz et al. 1996; Chakrabarti 1996a; Igumenshchev, Chen, & Abramowicz 1996; Chen, Abramowicz, & Lasota 1997; Nakamura et al. 1997; Narayan, Kato, & Honma 1997; Peitz & Appl 1997; Igumenshchev, Abramowicz, & Novikov 1998; Popham & Gammie 1998). Among these papers, we feel that the one of Narayan, Kato, & Honma (1997, hereafter NKH97) was most clearly written, and we would like to use it as a representative of the previous works on global solutions of ADAF.

NKH97 concentrated itself on the global structure and dynamics of ADAF around black holes. It did not specify any particular values for the accretion rate and the optical depth, so the global solution obtained in it could be applied to both the above mentioned regimes in which advection-dominated accretion can occur. This is an advantage of that paper. However, there are some points that we feel questionable. The first is about the boundary conditions of the flow, which are necessary and important for obtaining a global solution. An accretion flow into a black hole is definitely supersonic when crossing the hole’s horizon, and it is likely to be subsonic when locating at some large distance from the hole, therefore the flow motion must be transonic, i.e. there must exist at least one sonic point between the horizon and the large distance. Among these three boundary conditions what is unclear for an ADAF solution is the outer one. No one knows yet where and how an accretion flow becomes advection-dominated, or what kind of structure to which an ADAF should connect outwards. Perhaps because Shakura & Sunyaev model is the only well studied and successful one in the accretion disk theory, NKH97, as well as almost all previous works on global ADAF solutions, assumed that an ADAF connects outwards to a thin, cool, Keplerian accretion disk. However, this is only an assumption, and yet no justification has been made that it should be so. One may ask if conditions other than the thin disk condition are also possible for ADAF’s outer boundary. What we wish to have is a complete overview of the flow parameter space, in which all possible ADAF solutions corresponding to different boundary conditions are presented. This is the first purpose of our present paper.

The second question concerning NKH97, which we also try to answer in the present paper, is about discrepancies between the results of NKH97 for viscous ADAF and that in the literature for adiabatic, inviscid flows (e.g. Abramowicz & Zurek 1981; Chakrabarti 1990; Chakrabarti 1996b; Lu et al. 1997). Namely, for viscous ADAF there is always only one sonic point which is located close to the black hole, i.e. at several gravitational radii, and no shocks were found in the flow; while for the inviscid flow the sonic point can locate further away from the black hole, and there may exist two physical sonic points in the flow, consequently shocks may form. It is hard to understand these qualitative discrepancies, because adiabatic flows are the ideal case of ADAF, in the sense that all the energy of the accreted matter is carried into the black hole without any loss, there should be no such a jump between the dynamical behavior of adiabatic flows and that of ADAF. Rather, we think it is more reasonable to expect some similarities between the solution for adiabatic flows and that for ADAF, as well as a continuous and smooth change in the properties of flows, i.e. from inviscid flows via weakly viscous flows to strongly viscous flows.

## 2 Dynamics

### 2.1 Equations

We consider a steady state axisymmetric accretion flow. The governing equations are unique, although they may be written in more or less different forms by various authors. Here we employ exactly the same set of equations as in NKH97, which is similar to the ’slim disk equations’ of Abramowicz et al. (1988). In this formulation the hydrostatic equilibrium in the vertical direction is assumed, all physical variables are averaged vertically and thus are functions only of the cylindrical radius $`R`$ , the following resulting height-integrated equations, as shown by Narayan & Yi (1995), are a very good representation of the behavior of both thin disks and ADAF which tend to be nearly spherical.   
(i) The continuity equation:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dR}}(2\pi R)(2H\rho \upsilon )=0`$ (1)   
or, its integration form

$`4\pi RH\rho \upsilon =\dot{M}=constant`$ (2)   
where $`\rho `$is the density of the accreted gas, $`H`$ is the vertical half-thickness of the flow, $`\upsilon `$ is the radial velocity which is defined to be negative when the flow is inward, and is the mass accretion rate.   
(ii) The equation of vertical hydrostatic equilibrium:

$`H=({\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}})^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{c_s}{\mathrm{\Omega }_k}},`$ (3)   
where the coefficient (5/2)<sup>1/2</sup> is chosen on the basis of the self-similar solution obtained by Narayan & Yi (1995); $`c_s`$ is the isothermal sound speed of the gas defined as

$`c_s^2=p/\rho ,`$ (4)   
with $`p`$ being the pressure; and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k`$ is the Keplerian angular velocity which takes the form

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_k^2={\displaystyle \frac{GM}{(RR_g)^2R}},`$ (5)   
if the gravitational potential of the central black hole is assumed to be described by Paczynski & Wiita (1980) potential

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(R)={\displaystyle \frac{GM}{(RR_g)}},`$ (6)   
with $`M`$ being the mass of the black hole, and $`R_g`$ the gravitational radius, $`R_g`$ $``$ $`2GM/c`$<sup>2</sup> .   
(iii) The radial momentum equation:

$`\upsilon {\displaystyle \frac{d\upsilon }{dR}}=\mathrm{\Omega }^2R\mathrm{\Omega }_k^2R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dR}}(\rho c_s^2),`$ (7)   
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular velocity of the gas.   
(iv) The angular momentum equation:

$`\upsilon {\displaystyle \frac{d}{dR}}(\mathrm{\Omega }R^2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho RH}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dR}}(\nu \rho R^3H{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{dR}}),`$ (8)   
where $`\nu `$ is the kinematic coefficient of viscosity. In the spirit of Shakura & Sunyaev (1973), $`\nu `$ can be written as

$`\nu ={\displaystyle \frac{c_s^2}{\mathrm{\Omega }_k}},`$ (9)   
where $`\alpha `$ is assumed to be a constant. Substituting equation (9) in equation (8) and integrating, one obtains

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{dR}}={\displaystyle \frac{\upsilon \mathrm{\Omega }_k(\mathrm{\Omega }R^2j)}{\alpha R^2c_s^2}},`$ (10)   
where the integration constant $`j`$ represents the specific angular momentum per unit mass accreted by the black hole.   
(v) The energy equation for ADAF:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho \upsilon }{(\gamma 1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{dc_s^2}{dR}}c_s^2\upsilon {\displaystyle \frac{d\rho }{dR}}={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \rho c_s^2R^2}{\mathrm{\Omega }_k}}({\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{dR}})^2,`$ (11)   
where $`\gamma `$ is the ratio of specific heats of the gas.   
As mentioned in NKH97, Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) originally wrote a simpler prescription for the shear stress of the form

$`shearstress=\alpha p{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }_k}{d\mathrm{ln}R}}.`$ (12)   
With this prescription, equation (8) is modified to a different form which integrates to give an algebraic relation instead of differential equation (10), i.e. the resulting set of equations contains one less differential equation, and the task of finding solutions becomes considerably easier. For this reason the shear stress prescription (12) has been used by most of the authors in the field (see Chakrabarti 1996a for references).

### 2.2 Boundary conditions and numerical method

The set of dynamical equations consist of two algebraic equations (2) and (3), and three first-order differential equations (7), (10), and (11), for five unknown variables $`H`$, $`\rho `$, $`c_s`$, $`\upsilon `$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, all being functions of $`R`$. As stated in the introduction section, a global solution for black hole accretion requires three boundary conditions, namely, that at the inner boundary $`R_{in}`$, at the outer boundary $`R_{out}`$, and at the sonic point $`R_s`$, respectively. We discuss them in turn.   
(i) The sonic point condition:   
By combining equations (1), (3), (7), (10), and (11) to eliminate $`H`$, $`d\mathrm{\Omega }/dR`$, $`d\mathrm{ln}\rho /dR`$, and $`dc_s/dR`$, one obtains the following differential equation for $`d\upsilon /dR`$:

$`({\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma +1}}{\displaystyle \frac{\upsilon ^2}{c_s^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{ln}\upsilon }{dR}}={\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{\Omega }_k^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2)R}{c_s^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma +1}}`$   
$`\times ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }_k}{dR}})+{\displaystyle \frac{(\gamma 1)\mathrm{\Omega }_k\upsilon (\mathrm{\Omega }R^2j)^2}{\alpha (\gamma +1)R^2c_s^4}}.`$ (13)   
To make a smooth sonic transition for the flow, $`d\upsilon /dR`$ must be well behaved across the sonic point, this gives two boundary conditions:

$`\upsilon ^2{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma +1}}c_s^2=0,R=R_s,`$ (14)   
$`{\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{\Omega }_k^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2)R}{c_s^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma +1}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }_k}{dR}})+{\displaystyle \frac{(\gamma 1)\mathrm{\Omega }_k\upsilon (\mathrm{\Omega }R^2j)^2}{\alpha (\gamma +1)R^2c_s^4}}=0,R=R_s.`$ (15)   
Conditions (14) and (15) are exactly the same as in NKH97, and essentially the same as in all the previous works, because a sonic point in physics is just a critical point of ordinary differential equation (13) in mathematics, there is no question about it.   
(ii) The inner boundary condition:   
NKH97 imposed a no-torque condition ($`d\mathrm{\Omega }/dR=0`$) at $`R=R_{in}`$, which corresponds to (cf. eq. )

$`\mathrm{\Omega }R^2j=0,R=R_{in},`$ (16)   
and argued that, although technically this condition must be applied at the black hole horizon (i.e.$`R=R_{in}=R_g`$), in practice it could be applied equally well at any other radius between the horizon and the sonic point, or even at the sonic point itself. The fact that such a condition arises is because the viscous stress term in equation (8) is diffusive in form, signals due to the shear stress can propagate backward even in the supersonic zone of the flow, and this makes it necessary to impose a downstream boundary condition on the angular momentum. If the prescription for shear stress (12) is adopted as in most of the previous studies, signals cannot propagate backward from the supersonic zone, then condition (16) is unnecessary.   
(iii) The outer boundary condition:   
Unlike the above two ones, this condition is very uncertain, and it is the treatment of this condition that makes the numerical model of global solution. NKH97 assumed that the gas starts off from $`R_{out}=10^6R_s`$ in a state that corresponds to a standard Shakura-Sunyaev thin disk, and accordingly applied two conditions:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_k,R=R_{out},`$ (17)   
$`c_s=10^3\mathrm{\Omega }_kR,R=R_{out},`$ (18)   
of which condition (17) means that the flow is Keplerian rotating, and condition (18) means that the disk is cool, or equivalently thin ($`H10^3R`$ , cf. eq. ). With five boundary conditions (14), (15), (16), (17), and (18), NKH97 dealt with a very challenging numerical boundary value problem using a relaxation method. Since there are only three differential equations (7), (10), and (11) to be solved, the five boundary conditions enabled them to determine the two unknowns, i.e. the sonic radius $`R_s`$ and the integration constant $`j`$ as the eigenvalues. However, such an eigenvalue problem is numerically very time-consuming and difficult to solve; besides, one may still wonder how to know the location of outer boundary (why should it be $`10^6R_s`$ ?), and whether conditions other than (17) and (18) are also possible for ADAF solutions.

Chakrabarti and his collaborators introduced a very clever procedure (e.g. Chakrabarti 1996a). The difficulty of finding the eigenvalues was simply avoided: $`R_s`$ and $`j`$ were chosen to be free parameters and their values were supplied, and then the equations were integrated from the sonic point inwards until the black hole horizon, and outwards until the Keplerian value of angular momentum be achieved, i.e. condition (17) be satisfied. The outer boundary of the flow $`R_{out}`$ was solved out this way, rather than being specified as in NKH97. However, it should be noted that condition (17) is only a half of the thin disk condition, while the other half, i.e. condition (18) which describes the shape (or temperature) of the flow at $`R_{out}`$, was not mentioned in Chakrabarti’s work. Indeed, Chakrabarti’s approach is to let the outer boundary conditions automatically follow from an already known solution, there is no guarantee that solutions constructed in such a way will always be physically reasonable. Incorrect choices of eigenvalues may cause troubled solutions with which no astrophysically acceptable outer boundary conditions are consistent. Very recently, adopting a procedure similar to Chakrabarti’s, Igumenshchev, Abramowicz, & Novikov (1998) obtained global ADAF solutions for which the flow’s shape is slim everywhere ($`H/R1`$) and the distribution of angular momentum has a super-Keplerian part at the outer boundary. In particular, they found that ADAF solution could match outwards to the solution of Shapiro, Lightman, & Eardley (1976) in the case of bremsstrahlung cooling. The importance of these results is that outer boundary conditions other than the thin disk conditions (17) and (18) are shown to be possible for ADAF solutions.

In the present paper we solve the dynamical equations described in 2.1 in a way also similar to Chakrabarti’s. There are three differential equations (7), (10), and (11) for three unknown variables $`c_s`$, $`\upsilon `$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (the term $`d\mathrm{ln}\rho /dR`$ in eqs.  and  can be substituted for by using eqs.  and ). We integrate the three equations from the sonic point both inwards and outwards, and do not specify any ad hoc outer boundary conditions. To do so, we first take the sonic radius $`R_s`$ and the integration constant $`j`$ as two free parameters. Three more boundary values, namely the values of $`c_s`$, $`\upsilon `$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at $`R=R_s`$ are needed to start the integration, but there exist two constraint conditions (14) and (15), thus only one more boundary value has to be supplied. Our choice is to apply no-torque condition (16) at the sonic point $`R_s`$, this means that the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at $`R_s`$ is supplied, then the values of $`c_s`$ and $`\upsilon `$ at $`R_s`$ can be obtained from conditions (14) and (15). We use the standard fourth-order Runge-Kutta method to perform the integration from $`R_s`$. The derivative $`d\upsilon /dR`$ at $`R_s`$ is evaluated by applying l’Hôpital’s rule and solving a quadratic equation. The inward part of the solution extends until the black hole horizon, showing the flow’s supersonic motion; and the outward, subsonic part extends until a large radial distance which can be considered to be the flow’s outer boundary. After having $`c_s`$,$`\upsilon `$ , and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ as functions of $`R`$, other variables $`H`$, $`\rho `$, and $`p`$ can be calculated from equations (2), (3), and (4), and a global solution is obtained. By varying the values of two free parameters $`R_s`$ and $`j`$, we can find out all the possibilities of solutions: although some of the solutions constructed this way may not be physically acceptable, no physical solutions will be missed under such a ’carpet bombing’.

## 3 Results and discussion

We now present our numerical results. In our calculations the ratio of specific heats of the accreted gas $`\gamma `$ is fixed to be equal to 1.5. Figure 1 is an overview of the results which shows all the possibilities of solutions in the flow parameter space spanned by the sonic radius $`R_s`$ and the specific angular momentum accreted by the black hole $`j`$. The figure is for the viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ = 0.01. When $`\alpha `$ is taken to be other non-zero values the results keep qualitatively similar and change only quantitatively. It is seen from the figure that the whole parameter space is divided into six regions. The dashed line is for Keplerian angular momentum ($`l_k=\mathrm{\Omega }_kR^2`$) corresponding to given $`R_s`$, and region I is that above the dashed line. This region is unphysical, because it would require the square of radial velocity $`\upsilon ^2`$ at the sonic point to have negative values; or in other words, the value of $`j`$ is chosen to form too high a centrifugal barrier, so that it is impossible for the gas to be accreted. Region II is that above the dotted line which is also unphysical, again because of wrong choices of the parameters. In this region the derivative $`d\upsilon /dR`$ at $`R_s`$, calculated using l’Hôpital’s rule, has no real solution, such a sonic point is classified as of spiral type and is not physical. Apart from these two no-solution regions, the other regions in the parameter space all give solutions. We describe them in detail in the following subsections.

### 3.1 ADAF-thin disk solutions

We obtain ADAF solutions that connect outwards to thin disk solutions, i.e. conditions (17) and (18) at the outer boundary $`R_{out}`$ are both fulfilled. These solutions are just what constructed in NKH97, and all sit on the solid line AB in figure 1, which forms a part of the boundary between regions III and V. Figures 2a-c give a typical example of this class of solution, for which $`R_s=2.29R_g`$, and $`j=1.749(cR_g)`$. Figure 2a shows the radial velocity $`\upsilon `$ and the sound speed $`c_s`$ of the flow as functions of the radius $`R`$, drawn as a solid line and a dashed line, respectively. The crossing point of the two lines (marked by a filled circle) is the sonic point $`R_s`$. In figure 2b the radial distribution of the angular momentum of the flow ($`l=\mathrm{\Omega }R^2`$) is shown by a solid line, and the dashed line gives the Keplerian angular momentum distribution ($`l_k=\mathrm{\Omega }_kR^2`$). It is seen that beyond the outer boundary $`R_{out}=10^{3.99}R_g`$ (marked by a filled square) where the flow’s angular momentum equals the Keplerian value (condition ), there is a narrow region for which the rotating motion of the flow is super-Keplerian. This feature was not found in NKH97, but has been noticed recently in Igumenshchev, Abramowicz, & Novikov (1998). We are agreed with the latter authors about the physical reason of this feature: in this narrow region the pressure increases with radius, which is due to the rapid decrease of the disk thickness (cf. Fig. 2c) and the corresponding increase in the matter density, the fact that both the gravitational force and the pressure-gradient force are directed inwards results in super-Keplerian rotation. Indeed, super-Keplerian rotation often occurs in a region where a sharp transition in qualitative properties of the accretion flow takes place, e.g. at the cusp-like inner edge of thick disks (Abramowicz, Calvani, & Nobili 1980). NKH97 also noticed the super-Keplerian rotation, but on the inside, i.e. in a narrow region just outside the sonic point for flows with low values of $`\alpha `$. However, the way in which we find the super-Keplerian rotation in the outermost region of ADAF is different from that of Igumenshchev, Abramowicz, & Novikov (1998). Those authors still assumed some outer boundary condition, i.e. at $`R_{out}`$ the angular velocity of the flow was fixed as a fraction of the Keplerian angular velocity, although they showed that the presence of super-Keplerian rotation did not depend on the particular value taken for $`\mathrm{\Omega }(R_{out})`$; we do not assume any outer boundary conditions, the super-Keplerian rotation is found naturally by the outward integration of the equations. Figure 2c shows the relative thickness of the disk $`H/R`$ for all the range of radii. It is seen that the disk is thin in its inner region, is slim in the middle region ($`H/R`$ is close to 1), and that the thickness of the disk decreases rapidly with radius in the outer region. Beyond the outer boundary $`R_{out}`$ (the filled square) where the thin disk condition (18) is fulfilled, $`H`$ tends to be zero, and the outward integration has to be stopped.

It should be addressed that the way of finding ADAF-thin disk solutions in NKH97 is very restrictive. Adopting five boundary conditions (14)-(18) for three differential equations (7), (10), and (11) enabled those authors to determine two unknowns $`R_s`$ and $`j`$ as the eigenvalues. However, the range of variation for the value of $`R_{out}`$ is very large (cf. Fig. 3), perhaps because of this uncertainty NKH97 constructed only a few global solutions with $`R_{out}=10^6R_s`$. We take $`R_s`$ and $`j`$ as free parameters instead, then $`R_{out}`$ is found out by the meeting of conditions (17) and (18) in the outward integration of the equations, rather than being assumed. Technically, our approach is equivalent to that of NKH97 because the three quantities $`R_s`$, $`j`$, and $`R_{out}`$ in ADAF-thin disk solutions are the eigenvalue of each other: if one of them is correctly given, then the other two are fixed accordingly and have to be found out. Figure 1 has shown such an unique correspondence between $`R_s`$ and $`j`$ (the solid line AB). In figure 3 we present the unique correspondence between $`R_s`$ and $`R_{out}`$ for three different values of $`\alpha `$, the middle line AB is for $`\alpha =0.01`$ which corresponds to the solid line AB in figure 1. It is obvious from figures 1 and 3 that the acceptable range of $`R_{out}`$ is very large, while those of $`R_s`$ and $`j`$ are very small. Thus our approach has an advantage that, by varying the values of $`R_s`$ and $`j`$, we are able to find all the ADAF-thin disk solutions, not only some examples as in NKH97.

### 3.2 ADAF-thick disk solutions

For parameters $`R_s`$ and $`j`$ located in region V of figure 1, i.e. the left and the lower part of the parameter space, global solutions are of another class: an ADAF solution connects outwards to a thick disk solution. Figures 4a-c provide an example of this class of solution, for which $`R_s=2.29R_g`$, $`j=1.74(cR_g)`$. Figure 4a shows the radial variation of the radial velocity $`\upsilon `$ (solid line) and of the sound speed $`c_s`$ (dashed line), the crossing point (the filled circle) of the two lines is the sonic point $`R_s`$. Figure 4b draws the radial distribution of the flow’s angular momentum $`l`$ (solid line) and that of Keplerian angular momentum $`l_k`$ (dashed line). The crossing point (the filled square) of the two lines defines the outer boundary of ADAF solution $`R_{out}=10^{1.837}R_g`$ at which condition (17) is fulfilled. Super-Keplerian rotation is also presented outside $`R_{out}`$, also because the pressure-gradient is directed inwards. However, the increase of pressure with radius is not due to the sharp decrease of the disk’s thickness and the corresponding increase in the matter density as for ADAF-thin disk solutions, rather, it is due to the increase of sound speed (i.e. temperature) as reflected by the increase of the disk’s thickness (cf. Fig. 4c and eq. ).

The most noticeable feature of this class of solution is that, as seen from figure 4c, condition (18) is not fulfilled, i.e. the disk is not thin at the outer boundary of ADAF solution $`R_{out}`$ (the filled square), and outside $`R_{out}`$ the relative thickness $`H/R`$ increases with radius and gets larger than 1. We note that, unlike NKH97, in many previous works which assumed hydrostatic equilibrium in the vertical direction of the flow, only condition (17), i.e. Keplerian rotating was adopted to determine the outer boundary $`R_{out}`$, while the shape (or the temperature) of the flow at $`R_{out}`$ was not reported (e.g. Chakrabarti 1996a and references therein). Igumenshchev, Abramowicz, & Novikov (1998) ruled out solutions with $`H/R>>1`$ for the whole range of radii, $`R_{in}<R<R_{out}`$, because those solutions did not satisfy the slim disk condition $`H/R<1`$ (Note however that those solutions are different from ours, in our solutions the disk is thin or slim for $`R<R_{out}`$, and $`H/R>1`$ for $`RR_{out}`$ only). To our knowledge, there have been only two papers, namely Peitz & Appl (1997, see its Figs. 5-10) and Popham & Gammie (1998, see its Figs. 1-4) that assumed the flow to be in vertical hydrostatic equilibrium and obtained results similar to ours: $`H/R`$ increases with $`R`$ and exceeds unity for large $`R`$. We think that from mathematical point of view the problem of the flow in vertical hydrostatic equilibrium with $`H/R1`$ needs a more sophisticated study; from physical point of view, however, the possibility of connection of an ADAF to a geometrically thick flow is worth considering. For example, Narayan et al. (1998) applied an ADAF model to the Galactic center. The model naturally accounted for the apparently contradictory observations of Sgr A\*, i.e. a moderate mass accretion rate and an extremely low bolometric luminosity. On the other hand, Melia (1992) showed that the accretion is likely initiated by a bow shock that dissipates most of the directed kinetic energy and heats the gas to a temperature as high as about $`7\times 10^6`$ K. Such an initial state of the accretion flow corresponds hardly to a cool, thin disk, while a hot, thick disk is probably a better alternative. It is also known that the model for quiescent soft X-ray transients by Narayan, McClintock, & Yi (1996), in which an ADAF is surrounded by an outer geometrically thin and optically thick disk, although being very promising, encountered some difficulties. In particular, Lasota, Narayan, & Yi (1996) pointed out that the outer disk is too cold to account for the observed UV flux, and suggested that an optically thin disk could have higher temperature. However, an optically thin and geometrically thin disk, known as the solution of Shapiro, Lightman, & Eardley (1976), is thermally unstable. Therefore, an optically thin, geometrically slim or thick disk could again be an alternative for the outer disk of Narayan, McClintock, & Yi model.

### 3.3 $`\alpha `$-type solutions

Following Abramowicz & Chakrabarti (1990), a solution is called X type if it is complete, i.e. if it is able to join the black hole horizon to a large radius which can be considered as the outer boundary; while a solution is called $`\alpha `$ type if it is incomplete, i.e. if it can extend to the black hole horizon only, or to the outer boundary only. The ADAF-thin disk solution and the ADAF- thick disk solution described in the above two subsections are both of X type. In the $`R_sj`$ parameter space (Fig. 1) there are two regions in which solutions are of $`\alpha `$ type, namely region III (bounded by the solid line AB, the dashed line, the dotted line, and the dot-dot-dot-dashed line) and region IV (between the dotted line and the dot-dashed line). An example of the solution in region III, for which R<sub>s</sub> = 2.29 R<sub>g</sub>, j = 1,76 (cR<sub>g</sub>), is given by figures 5a-c. Figure 5a is again for $`\upsilon `$ vs. $`R`$ (solid line) and $`c_s`$ vs. $`R`$ (dashed line). The crossing point (the filled circle) of the two lines is the sonic point $`R_s`$. The inward part of the solution extends until the black hole horizon. In the outward integration the two lines meet again at $`R=10^{2.02}R_g`$ (marked by a filled triangle). However it is not another physical sonic point, it is a singular point of differential equation (13), i.e. only condition (14) is satisfied there while condition (15) is not, the derivative $`d\upsilon /dR`$ tends to be infinite, and the outward integration cannot be performed any further. Such a solution is obviously of $`\alpha `$ type. Figure 5b shows that the angular momentum $`l`$ (solid line) is sub-Keplerian for the entire range of solution (the dashed line is for Keplerian angular momentum $`l_k`$); and figure 5c tells that the relative thickness $`H/R`$ keeps being smaller than 1.

The $`\alpha `$-type solution in region IV is somewhat different. Figures 6a-c provide an example with $`R_s=30R_g`$, $`j=1.4(cR_g)`$. The solution extends to $`R_{out}=10^{3.736}R_g`$ (the crossing point of the solid line for $`l`$ and the dashed line for $`l_k`$ in Fig. 6b, marked by a filled square) defined by condition (17), but not to the black hole horizon, just opposite to the solution in region III. After passing through the sonic point $`R_s`$ (the crossing point of the solid line for $`\upsilon `$ and the dashed line for $`c_s`$ in Fig. 6a, marked by a filled circle), the inward integration has to be stopped at $`R=4.49R_g`$ (the other meeting point of the two lines in Fig. 6a, marked by a filled triangle), also because of the singularity, i.e. an infinite derivative $`d\upsilon /dR`$ resulting from the fact that only condition (14) is satisfied and condition (15) is not. The distribution of angular momentum has a super-Keplerian part outside $`R_{out}`$ (Fig. 6b). The relative thickness $`H/R`$ increases rapidly with radius and gets much larger than 1 for large $`R`$ (Fig. 6c).

A single $`\alpha `$-type solution is unacceptable, simply because it is not a global solution. We present this class of solution here for the following reasons. First, it does occupy certain regions in the $`R_sj`$ parameter space, if it were ignored then the picture of solution distribution in parameter space would be incomplete. Second, perhaps more importantly, $`\alpha `$-type solutions are not totally useless. An $`\alpha `$-type solution could join another $`\alpha `$-type or an X-type solution via a standing shock, forming a global solution. Lu & Yuan (1998) obtained three types of shock- included global solutions for adiabatic black hole accretion flows, namely $`\alpha `$-X, X-$`\alpha `$, and $`\alpha `$-$`\alpha `$ type. We are currently working on the problem of shock formation in ADAF around black holes. Our initial results show that an ADAF-thick disk solution (X type) in region V of figure 1 may join an $`\alpha `$-type solution in region III via a standing shock, forming an $`\alpha `$-X type shock-included global solution. However, the parameter range of $`\alpha `$-type solutions which imply the existence of shocks is very small, much smaller than region III itself. For ADAF-thin disk solutions (solid line AB in figure 1) there are indeed no standing shocks at all, i.e. the conclusion made in NKH97 on this point is correct. We shall discuss the problem of shocks in ADAF in detail in a subsequent paper.

### 3.4 Solutions for inviscid flows

For comparison we show in figure 7 the distribution of solutions for inviscid flows (the viscosity parameter $`\alpha =0`$) in the $`R_sj`$ parameter space. The parameter $`j`$ is now understood as the constant specific angular momentum of the flow. The other parameter $`R_s`$ could be equivalently replaced by the constant specific total energy if the flow is further assumed to be adiabatic. It is seen that figure 7 is qualitatively similar to figure 1. The whole parameter space is divided into five regions. No solution exists in region I because a too high centrifugal barrier prevents the flow from accreting; nor in region II because the sonic point is of vortex type (not spiral type) which is also unphysical. Region V is for thick disk solutions, and regions III and IV are for $`\alpha `$-type solutions. However in these solutions no outer boundary defined by condition (17) can be found: for large radii the flow’s angular momentum is always sub-Keplerian. A remarkable feature of inviscid flows is that for these flows ADAF-thin disk solutions of NKH97 do not exist at all. In fact, as the value of $`\alpha `$ decreases, the range of parameters for ADAF-thin disk solutions shrinks, i.e. the solid line AB in figure 1 shortens. When $`\alpha =0`$ (figure 7), the line AB becomes a dot of $`R_s=2R_g`$ and $`j=2(cR_g)`$, the corresponding $`R_{out}`$ does not exist, in other words, it becomes infinity. All these results agree with our expectation that there should be similarities between the dynamical behavior of ADAF and that of adiabatic inviscid flows, and that there should be a continuous change from the behavior of viscous flows to that of inviscid flows, i.e. when the value of $`\alpha `$ decreases continuously.

## 4 Summary

In this paper we construct global solutions describing ADAF around black holes. The major points we wish to stress are as follows. (i) We recover the ADAF-thin disk solution as a whole class, not only some examples as in NKH97. (ii) We obtain a new class of global solution, namely the ADAF-thick disk solution, and suggest possible applications of this class of solution to some astrophysical systems. (iii) We present the $`\alpha `$-type solution as still another class of solution. Most of $`\alpha `$-type solutions are unacceptable because they are not global solutions, but some of them could be involved as part of global solutions with shocks. (iv) We support the conclusion of NKH97 that no standing shocks are relevant to ADAF-thin disk solutions. Global solutions with shocks, if they ever exist, could only result from combination of $`\alpha `$-type solutions and ADAF-thick disk solutions. (v) We show the solution distribution for inviscid flows in the parameter space, which agrees with the view that there should be some similarities between ADAF and adiabatic flows, as well as some continuity from the properties of viscous flows to those of inviscid ones.

We thank S. Kato and S. Mineshige for discussions, and R. Narayan and E. Quataert for showing us their numerical code which enabled us to understand the method and results of NKH97. We also thank M.A. Abramowicz for helpful suggestions to improve our manuscript.