Accretion of Matter by Condensed Objects

The equations of motion for steady-state spherical symmetric flow of matter into or out of a condensed object (e.g. neutron stars, 'black holes', etc.) are displayed and solved for simple polytropic gases. It appears that infalling matter may be heated as hot as 10¹²K and that X-ray luminosities of the order of 10³⁷ erg s^‑1 could result. The two fluid (electrons and ions separately) approach is also examined and it is shown that electrostatic fields of the order of 10⁵ V m^‑1 are required near the surface of the object. Such fields are not strong enough to significantly modify the space-time metric.