Efficient Generation of Jets from Magnetically Arrested Accretion on a Rapidly Spinning Black Hole

By A. Tchekhovskoy, Ramesh Narayan, Jonathan C. McKinney Princeton, Harvard, Stanford. 2011

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We describe global, 3D, time-dependent, non-radiative, general-relativistic, magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accreting black holes (BHs). The simulations are designed to transport a large amount of magnetic flux to the centre, more than the accreting gas can force into the BH. The excess magnetic flux remains outside the BH, impedes accretion, and leads to a magnetically arrested disc. We find powerful outflows. For a BH with spin parameter a = 0.5, the efficiency with which the accretion system generates outflowing energy in jets and winds is η ≈ 30 per cent. For a = 0.99, we find η ≈ 140 per cent, which means that more energy flows out of the BH than flows in. The only way this can happen is by extracting spin energy from the BH. Thus the a = 0.99 simulation represents an unambiguous demonstration, within an astrophysically plausible scenario, of the extraction of net energy from a spinning BH via the Penrose–Blandford–Znajek mechanism. We suggest that magnetically arrested accretion might explain observations of active galactic nuclei with apparent η ≈ few × 100 per cent.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/504d55daf1a0acd61e97676b003479b63ee7de37

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Citations in the corpus

Superradiance (2015, background): “Recently, efficiencies up to ηjet ∼ 300% have been obtained in GRMHD simulations [793, 778, 779, 774] which is a strong indication that the BZ mechanism is at work.”
HIGH-RESOLUTION LINEAR POLARIMETRIC IMAGING FOR THE EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE (2016, methodology): “…of Avery Broderick (Broderick & Loeb 2009; Broderick et al. 2011; Lu et al. 2014), ray-traced images from a magnetically arrested disk (see, e.g., Tchekhovskoy et al. (2011)) GRMHD simulation courtesy of Jason Dexter (Dexter 2014), and a GRMHD simulation from Roman Gold (Shcherbakov & McKinney…”
Three-dimensional general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamical simulation of super-Eddington accretion, using a new code HARMRAD with M1 closure (2013, neutral): “Compared to Gaussian units version of φH ≡ ΦH/ √ Ṁ0r2gc defined in Tchekhovskoy et al. (2011), Υ ≈ 0.2φH.”
Black Hole Flares: Ejection of Accreted Magnetic Flux through 3D Plasmoid-mediated Reconnection (2021, background): “…magnetic flux (proportional to the square root of the mass accretion rate) is forced into the black hole by the accreting gas, until the flux becomes dynamically important and strong enough to push the accreting gas away (Igumenshchev et al. 2003; Igumenshchev 2008; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011).”
Three-dimensional simulations of supercritical black hole accretion discs - luminosities, photon trapping and variability (2015, background): “The hope was that the single loop would lead to a strong magnetic field at the horizon and would give a magnetically arrested disk (Igumenshchev et al. 2003; Narayan et al. 2003; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011; McKinney et al. 2012).”
Energy, momentum and mass outflows and feedback from thick accretion discs around rotating black holes (2013, methodology): “An accretion flow with geometrical thickness h/r ≈ 0.4 transitions to the MAD state once BH reaches ∼50 (Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011, 2012).”
Relativistic MHD simulations of core-collapse GRB jets: 3D instabilities and magnetic dissipation (2015, methodology): “We carry out our simulations using the HARM code (Gammie et al 2003), with recent improvements (McKinney 2006; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2007, 2009; McKinney & Blandford 2009, Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011).”
Formation of precessing jets by tilted black hole discs in 3D general relativistic MHD simulations (2017, methodology): “To mitigate this problem, we adopt the approach of Tchekhovskoy et al. (2011) of stretching the polar cells in θ and, additionally, use two to four layers of static mesh-refinement to decrease the φ resolution, giving a speedup by a factor of 4–16 (see SI Sections 2.2– 2.3).”
Three-dimensional relativistic MHD simulations of active galactic nuclei jets: magnetic kink instability and Fanaroff–Riley dichotomy (2015, methodology): “We carry out the simulations with the harm code (Gammie, McKinney, & Tóth 2003; Noble et al. 2006; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2007; McKinney & Blandford 2009; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011 and use modified spherical polar coordinates (r, θ, ϕ) described below that span the range (rin, rout) × (0, π) × (0, 2π).”
The limb-brightened jet of M87 down to the 7 Schwarzschild radii scale (2018, methodology): “With the GMVA, it is possible to directly compare the structure of the innermost jet of M 87 observed at the above-mentioned spatial resolution of 7 Rsch with GRMHD simulations of the jet formation region (e.g., McKinney 2006; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011; Mościbrodzka et al. 2016).”
Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets (2013, background): “Moreover, in one particular simulation involving a rapidly spinning black hole and a strong poloidal ﬁeld, Tchekhovskoy et al. (2011) showed that the power carried by the jet exceeded the total rest mass energy of accreted gas, meaning that the jet extracted energy from the spinning black hole.”
First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Testing Astrophysical Models of the Galactic Center Black Hole (2022, background): “…hole equator, ºM mass accretion rate), divides the outcome into two states: the MAD state (e.g., BisnovatyiKogan & Ruzmaikin 1974; Igumenshchev et al. 2003; Narayan et al. 2003; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2011) and the SANE state (e.g., De Villiers et al. 2003; Gammie et al. 2003; Narayan et al. 2012).”
Superradiance: Energy Extraction, Black-Hole Bombs and Implications for Astrophysics and Particle Physics (2015, background): “Recently, efficiencies up to ηjet ∼ 300% have been obtained in GRMHD simulations [460, 445, 446, 443] which is a strong indication that the BZ mechanism is at work.”