General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the jet formation and large-scale propagation from black hole accretion systems

By J. McKinney. 2006

522 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The formation and large-scale propagation of Poynting-dominatedjets produced by accreting, rapidly rotating black hole systems are studied by numerically integrating the general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic equations of motion to follow the self-consistent interaction between accretion discs and black holes. This study extends previous similar work by studying jets till t ≈ 10 4 GM/c 3 out to r ≈ 10 4 GM/c 2 , by which the jet is superfast magnetosonic and moves at a lab-frame bulk Lorentz factor of Γ ∼ 10 with a maximum terminal Lorentz factor of Γ ∞ ≤ 10 3 . The radial structure of the Poynting-dominated jet is piece-wise self-similar, and fits to flow quantities along the field line are provided. Beyond the Alfven surface at r ∼ 10-100GM/c 2 , the jet becomes marginally unstable to (at least) current-driven instabilities. Such instabilities drive shocks in the jet that limit the efficiency of magnetic acceleration and collimation. These instabilities also induce jet substructure with 3 ≤ Γ ≤ 15. The jet is shown to only marginally satisfy the necessary and sufficient conditions for kink instability, so this may explain how astrophysical jets can extend to large distances without completely disrupting. At large distance, the jet angular structure is Gaussian-like (or uniform within the core with sharp exponential wings) with a half-opening angle of ≈5° and there is an extended component out to ≈ 27°. Unlike in some hydrodynamic simulations, the environment is found to play a negligible role in jet structure, acceleration, and collimation as long as the ambient pressure of the surrounding medium is small compared to the magnetic pressure in the jet.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b23460d3b36894767eaa918517f12ca2748fcc05

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

MODELING OF GAMMA-RAY PULSAR LIGHT CURVES USING THE FORCE-FREE MAGNETIC FIELD (2009, background): “The structure of the FF magnetosphere differs substantially from the rotating dipole field due to the poloidal current and the returning current sheet (Contopoulos et al. 1999; Gruzinov 2005; Komissarov 2006; McKinney 2006; Timokhin 2006).”
Short-hard gamma-ray bursts (2007, methodology): “…2003; Machida & Matsumoto, 2003; Kato, Mineshige & Shibata, 2004) to GR simulations using a Kerr metric in two dimensions (McKinney & Gammie, 2004; McKinney, 2005, 2006) and in three dimensions (De Villiers, Hawley & Krolik, 2003; De Villiers et al. , 2005; Hirose et al. , 2004; Krolik, Hawley &…”
Global General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of a Tilted Black Hole Accretion Disk (2007, methodology): “This treatment differs from the pure reflecting boundaries used in other works (e.g., De Villiers et al. 2003; McKinney 2006) in its treatment of the unboosted variables.”
Beyond ideal MHD: towards a more realistic modelling of relativistic astrophysical plasmas (2008, background): “…force vanishes in this case) and while the equations governing it can be seenas the low-inertia limit of the ideal-MHD equations (Komissarov 2002; McKinney 2006b), the force-free limit is really distinct from the 1 Note that this expression for the electrical conductivity is roughly correct for…”
The Proto-Magnetar Model for Gamma-Ray Bursts (2010, background): “RAS, MNRAS 000, 1–29 21 rotation and the large-scale magnetic field of the central engine (e.g. McKinney 2006).”
EVIDENCE FOR LOW BLACK HOLE SPIN AND PHYSICALLY MOTIVATED ACCRETION MODELS FROM MILLIMETER-VLBI OBSERVATIONS OF SAGITTARIUS A* (2010, background): “…with large-scale general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic and radiative-hydrodynamic simulations playing a central role (De Villiers et al. 2005; McKinney 2006; Hawley & Krolik 2006; Beckwith et al. 2008; McKinney & Blandford 2009; Tchekhovskoy et al. 2010; Dexter et al. 2010; Penna et al.…”
General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of magnetically choked accretion flows around black holes (2012, methodology): “…(for GRMHD simulations, e.g., see De Villiers et al. 2003; McKinney & Gammie 2004; McKinney 2005; De Villiers et al. 2005; Hawley & Krolik 2006; McKinney 2006b; Komissarov & McKinney 2007; Komissarov et al. 2007; McKinney & Narayan 2007a,b; Fragile et al. 2007; Beckwith et al. 2008a; McKinney…”
Time-dependent Force-free Pulsar Magnetospheres: Axisymmetric and Oblique Rotators (2006, methodology): “This is why our method is able to develop and sustain sharp current sheets unlike Komissarov’s (2005) scheme, without the need to explicitly null the inflow velocity into current sheets as in McKinney (2006a).”
Magnetic acceleration of relativistic AGN jets (2007, background): “Another possibility is that the speed of AGN jets is controlled by the dissipation at oblique shocks developing as a result of an interaction with an unsteady external ﬂow or due to various instabilities (McKinney 2006).”
RESISTIVE SOLUTIONS FOR PULSAR MAGNETOSPHERES (2011, background): “…limit (Deutsch 1955) and for the limit of abundant plasma in force-free electrodynamics (see Contopoulos et al. 1999; Gruzinov 2005; Timokhin 2006; McKinney 2006; Komissarov 20061 for aligned rotators, and Spitkovsky 2006, hereafter S06; Contopoulos & Kalapotharakos 2009 for pulsars with…”
High-Frequency VLBI Imaging of the Jet Base of M87 (2007, background): “Recent studies by De Villiers et al. (2005) and McKinney (2006) found two different regions aswell, but with the poloidalmagnetic fields in the inner hot, fast outflow rather than the colder, slower outflow that surrounds the inner outflow.”
TOWARD A REALISTIC PULSAR MAGNETOSPHERE (2011, background): “The axisymmetric solution has since been confirmed and further studied by several others (Gruzinov 2005; Timokhin 2006; Komissarov 2006; McKinney 2006), in particular with respect to its properties near the Y-point (the intersection of the last closed field line and the LC; Uzdensky 2003).”
EFFICIENCY OF MAGNETIC TO KINETIC ENERGY CONVERSION IN A MONOPOLE MAGNETOSPHERE (2009, methodology): “…consider the limit of infinitely high magnetization,ρ → 0, i.e. the force-free limit (Goldreich & Julian 1969; Okamoto 1974; Blandford 1976; Lovelace 1976; Blandford & Znajek 1977; MacDonald & Thorne 1982; Fendt et al. 1995; Komissarov 2001, 2002a,b; McKinney 2006a; Narayan et al. 2007; TMN08).”
A unified model for AGN feedback in cosmological simulations of structure formation (2007, background): “Several numerical studies dealing with BH microphysics (e.g. Proga, 2003; McKinney, 2006) also predict existence of quasar outflows.”
Self-regulated growth of supermassive black holes by a dual jet-heating active galactic nucleus feedback mechanism: methods, tests and implications for cosmological simulations (2011, unknown): “…are supported by numerical models of the microphysics of BH accretion discs that can drive massive hydromagnetic outflows and jets (De Villiers et al. 2005; McKinney 2006; McKinney & Blandford 2009), and large amounts of heat carried by photons that could potentially ionize the surrounding gas.”
Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era (2009, background): “A spinning black hole (or neutron star) constitutes an excellent gyroscope, and the ingredients of accretion, angular momentum, entropy production, and possibly magnetic fields are probably sufficient to ensure the production of collimated outflow (McKinney 2006).”
Hot Accretion Flows Around Black Holes (2014, methodology): “Representative results from 3D GRMHD simulations can be found in the series of early papers by De Villiers and collaborators (De Villiers et al. 2003, 2005; Hirose et al. 2004; Krolik et al. 2005) and Gammie and collaborators (Gammie et al. 2004, McKinney & Gammie 2004, McKinney 2006).”
The Structure and Dynamics of the Subparsec Jet in M87 Based on 50 VLBA Observations over 17 Years at 43 GHz (2018, background): “…are consistent with general classes of models where the radio emission region is in the outer portions — the sheath — of a symmetric jet launched by magnetic fields threading an accretion disk (cf. Blandford & Payne 1982; Blandford & Zanjek 1977; McKinney 2006; McKinney & Blandford 2009).”
Stability of relativistic jets from rotating, accreting black holes via fully three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations (2008, methodology): “…jet from an unresolved Keplerian disc (e.g., Tchekhovskoy et al. 2008), and to evolving both the disc and jet (e.g., Hawley et al. 2001; McKinney & Gammie 2002, 2004; Kigure & Shibata 2005; McKinney 2005; Hawley & Krolik 2006; McKinney 2006a; McKinney & Narayan 2007a,b; Komissarov & McKinney 2007).”