Thick accretion disks - Self-similar, supercritical models

Self-similar models, characterized by near-equilibrium between gravity, centrifugal force and radiation pressure, are generated for geometrically thick, supercritical accretion disks analyzing their structure and stability. The assumption that hydrodynamic quantities scale as power laws in radius allows for computation of disk structure as a function of the angle from the rotation axis, given a viscosity law model to which the structure of the interior of the disk is sensitive. The behaviors of other hydrodynamic quantities near the surface depend on the viscosity law, but not on the degree of pressure support on the equator. All models are found to be unstable to local axisymmetric perturbations at high latitudes noting the role of convection in bringing the disk to marginal stability. It is recommended that future thick accretion disk models take into account both their convective nature and the dependence of their structure on the viscosity law.