In 1973, the seminal paper by Shakura and Sunyaev on accretion disks was published. This paper laid the basis for numerous research works in the field of high-energy astrophysics: studies of accreting white dwarfs, neutron stars, stellar-mass and supermassive black holes rarely manage to avoid comparison to early results presented in this work. The paper now has over 11000 citations and is considered to be among the classical works, which often lose extra citations because of this.
In 2023 we celebrated the 50-years anniversary of the accretion power foundations and mark this milestone by reviewing the progress that occurred in the first half-century of accretion disc studies. During this time the observational landscape has become much more complex and varied, but the model still provides the basic framework for understanding observations of accretion discs.
The Workshop will cover the current standing of the accretion disk paradigm, a historical review of progress of our understanding of the engine powering accretion, an overview of observational discoveries shedding light on the accretion geometry, as well as a discussion of possible future directions.