  We quantify the effects of electron thermal conduction on the properties of
hot accretion flows, under the assumption of spherical symmetry. Electron heat
conduction is important for low accretion rate systems where the electron
cooling time is longer than the conduction time of the plasma, such as Sgr A*
in the Galactic Center. For accretion flows with density profiles similar to
the Bondi solution (n[r] ~ r^[-3/2]), we show that heat conduction leads to
super-virial temperatures, implying that conduction significantly modifies the
dynamics of the accretion flow. We then self-consistently solve for the
dynamics of spherical accretion in the presence of saturated conduction and
electron heating. We find that the accretion rate onto the central object can
be reduced by ~1-3 orders of magnitude relative to the canonical Bondi rate.
Electron conduction may thus be an important ingredient in explaining the low
radiative efficiencies and low accretion rates inferred from observations of
low-luminosity galactic nuclei. The solutions presented in this paper may also
describe the nonlinear saturation of the magnetothermal instability in hot
accretion flows.
