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Glowing Vortices—Accretion Disks

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Book cover Spectroscopy: The Key to the Stars

Part of the book series: Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series ((PATRICKMOORE))

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Abstract

Accretion disks are very familiar in astronomy these days; they are believed to exist around black holes, both in binary systems and at the centre of active galactic nuclei. They are also believed to form within many interacting binary stars; particularly cataclysmic variables or CVs. What’s perhaps not quite so well known is that the hot gases which make up an accretion disk can produce emission lines of hydrogen and what’s more these emission lines can have very striking profile shapes. They are in fact often double-peaked with what’s called a central reversal in between; they also have broad extensive wings.

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© 2007 Springer

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Robinson, K. (2007). Glowing Vortices—Accretion Disks. In: Spectroscopy: The Key to the Stars. Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68288-4_9

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