Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/iii/paper-347/1/c/solution

If and , expansion of the denominator gives
the stated model's pressure-dominated Bondi accretion limit. Its order-unity coefficient differs from the found for the exactly isothermal critical solution because such coefficients depend on the adopted equation of state and interpolation.
If instead ,
The gas's thermal motion is then negligible beside the galactic velocity dispersion, and the enclosed galactic mass, rather than the black hole alone, focuses the gas. For a singular isothermal sphere, , so this becomes . This second limit describes capture controlled by the host potential and is therefore not a genuinely spherical black-hole Bondi solution.

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