Magnetospheres of black hole systems in force-free plasma

Journal Article · Sun Aug 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.82.044045· OSTI ID:21420981

Palenzuela, Carlos ^[1]; Garrett, Travis ^[2]; Lehner, Luis ^[3]; Liebling, Steven L ^[4]

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1. Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8 (Canada)
2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803 (United States)
3. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5 (Canada)
4. Department of Physics, Long Island University, New York 11548 (United States)

The interaction of black holes with ambient magnetic fields is important for a variety of highly energetic astrophysical phenomena. We study this interaction within the force-free approximation in which a tenuous plasma is assumed to have zero inertia. Blandford and Znajek used this approach to demonstrate the conversion of some of the black hole's energy into electromagnetic Poynting flux in stationary and axisymmetric single black hole systems. We adopt this approach and extend it to examine asymmetric and, most importantly, dynamical systems by implementing the fully nonlinear field equations of general relativity coupled to Maxwell's equations. For single black holes, we study, in particular, the dependence of the Poynting flux and show that, even for misalignments between the black hole spin and the direction of the asymptotic magnetic field, a Poynting flux is generated with a luminosity dependent on such misalignment. For binary black hole systems, we show both in the head-on and orbiting cases that the moving black holes generate a Poynting flux.

• OSTI ID: 21420981
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 82, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.82.044045; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
APPROXIMATIONS
ASTROPHYSICS
ASYMMETRY
ASYMPTOTIC SOLUTIONS
AXIAL SYMMETRY
BLACK HOLES
FIELD EQUATIONS
GENERAL RELATIVITY THEORY
INTERACTIONS
LUMINOSITY
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAXWELL EQUATIONS
MOMENT OF INERTIA
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA
SPIN
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
CALCULATION METHODS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
FIELD THEORIES
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICS
RELATIVITY THEORY
SYMMETRY