Powered by Indico
v3.2.9
https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/530682073
Semi-detached binaries, such as Cataclysmic Variables or Low-Mass X-ray Binaries, are some of the best-observed accreting systems, with observational data ranging from variability-component-resolved spectrometry to two-dimensional Doppler imaging of the disk surface. This makes them ideal laboratories of accretion physics, with many local and global models dedicated to understanding their properties. The existing global models of these systems specifically were very successful in explaining the global hydrodynamical properties of these environments, notably the role of spiral shocks in driving accretion. However, to limit computational cost, these studies would typically rely on alpha prescriptions to provide the MRI-related component of angular momentum transport. Thus, there is a need for global models that would address the interaction between MRI turbulence and global hydrodynamical features self-consistently. In this talk, building upon the unstratified MHD simulations of Ju et al. (2016,2017), I will present our results of the first fully-3D global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of accretion disks fed by Roche lobe overflow, including vertical stratification. These models, while still only approximations of true semi-detached binaries, allow us to investigate self-consistently the roles of spiral shocks, magnetorotational instability (MRI), and the accretion stream in their disk structure and evolution.