Accretion onto a small black hole at the center of a neutron star.

We revisit the system consisting of a neutron star that harbors a small, possibly primordial, black hole at its center, focusing on a nonspinning black hole embedded in a nonrotating neutron star. Extending earlier treatments, we provide an analytical treatment describing the rate of secular accretion of the neutron star matter onto the black hole, adopting the relativistic Bondi accretion formalism for stiff equations of state that we presented elsewhere. We use these accretion rates to sketch the evolution of the system analytically until the neutron star is completely consumed.

Relativistic Bondi accretion for stiff equations of state.

We revisit Bondi accretion - steady-state, adiabatic, spherical gas flow on to a Schwarzschild black hole at rest in an asymptotically homogeneous medium - for stiff polytropic equations of state (EOSs) with adiabatic indices Γ > 5/3. A general relativistic treatment is required to determine their accretion rates, for which we provide exact expressions. We discuss several qualitative differences between results for soft and stiff EOSs - including the appearance of a minimum steady-state accretion rate for EOSs with Γ ≥ 5/3 - and explore limiting cases in order to examine these differences.