Special Session SS12   3 Jul 2026

Disc winds across the mass scale

Aims and scope

Disk winds - outflows of gas launched from accretion disks - are a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon across astrophysics, observed in systems ranging from protostars and white dwarfs to neutron stars and black holes. These winds play a pivotal role in at least three respects:

  • Regulating accretion by extracting mass, angular momentum, and energy from the disk.
  • Mediating feedback between the disk and its surrounding environment.
  • Shaping observations by acting as an intervening screen between the accretion flow and the observer.
Understanding disk winds is therefore essential for understanding accretion itself. Yet, despite decades of study, basic questions remain unresolved: How are these winds launched? What governs their properties? And what is their impact on the dynamical and radiative behavior of accretion disks? This special session aims to bring together experts working on disk winds in a wide variety of compact objects - white dwarfs, neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, and supermassive black holes. While each class of object exhibits its own distinctive phenomenology, many physical processes are shared across systems.We hope to foster dialogue between observers and theorists across these communities, highlight synergies and accelerate progress toward a comprehensive understanding of disk winds and their connection to accretion physics. The session is especially timely as the advent of XRISM is set to revolutionize the field, delivering X-ray spectra with a hundred-fold improvement in resolution over previous missions. Early results are already transforming our view of disk winds, providing unprecedented insights into their structure, dynamics, and variability. Therefore this is an ideal time to bring the community together and share progress and findings across domains.

Programme

Invited speakers

  • Prof. Lixin Dai(University of Hong Kong)
  • Margherita Giustini(Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB), CSIC-INTA; TBC)
  • James Matthews(University of Oxford; TBC)
  • Pierre-Olivier Petrucci(Université Grenoble Alpes)
  • Megumi Shidatsu(Ehime University)
  • Ryota Tomaru(Osaka University)

Scientific organisers

  • Noel Castro Segura (Warwick University, UK; Chair)
  • Nicolas Scepi (Université Grenoble Alpes, France; Co-chair)
  • Andrés Gúrpide Lasheras (University of Southampton, UK; Co-chair)
  • Christine Done (Durham University, UK)
  • Christian Knigge (University of Southampton, UK)
  • Ciro Pinto (INAF-Palermo, Italy)
  • Daniel Proga (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, US)
  • María Díaz Trigo (ESO-Garching, Germany)
  • Teo Muñoz-Darias (IAC, Spain)

    • Contact

    noel.castro-Segura@warwick.ac.uk andres.gurpide.astro@soton.ac.uk nicolas.scepi @ univ-grenoble-alpes.fr

    Updated on Fri Jan 30 12:08:21 CET 2026
European Astronomical Society