Radiation-supported inner-disk height

ID: radiation-supported-inner-disk-height

The inner Shakura--Sunyaev thin disk is supported mainly by radiation pressure and has nearly constant electron-scattering opacity. Equating radiative diffusion with local dissipation and imposing vertical hydrostatic equilibrium gives the characteristic half-thickness
The radiation-supported height approaches a plateau away from the inner boundary. The formal zero at that boundary is outside the reliable radiation-dominated approximation. At an Eddington accretion rate defined using efficiency , this height can make the inner flow only marginally thin.

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