Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/iii/paper-314/3/c/solution

Combining the two expressions for the sonic sound speed gives
For a polytropic gas, , and hence
The transonic accretion in a steep dark-matter cusp has mass accretion rate
Thus , whereas classical Bondi accretion onto a point mass has . The steeper dependence comes from the cusp potential, whose sonic radius scales as instead of .

New to topics? Read the docs here!