Nonaxisymmetric Poynting Jets

Abstract

The relativistic plasma jets from a misaligned black hole-accretion disk system will not be axially symmetric. Here we analyze nonaxisymmetric, stationary, translation invariant jets in the force-free approximation where the field energy dominates the particle energy. We derive a stream equation for these configurations involving the flux function $\psi$ for the transverse magnetic field, the linear velocity $v(\psi )$ of field lines along the jet, and the longitudinal magnetic field $B_z(\psi )$. The equations can be completely solved when $|v|=1$, and when $|v|<1$ the problem can be reduced to the pure magnetic case $v=0$ by a "field line dependent boost". We also find a large class of nonaxisymmetric solutions with arbitrary dependence on the longitudinal retarded time. A subclass of these constitutes a novel type of jet that has vanishing electromagnetic pressure $\frac{1}{2}(B^2-E^2)$ and requires no external pressure for confinement. We prove that such self-confinement is impossible when $B^2>E^2$. Finally, we write down specific solutions approximating numerical results for the nonaxisymmetric jet produced by a spinning black hole in an external, misaligned magnetic field.

11 pages; v2: minor editing to improve the presentation

References in corpus (3)

• "Meissner effect" and Blandford-Znajek mechanism in conductive black hole magnetospheres
• Black Hole Magnetospheres
• Are Spine--Sheath Polarization Structures in the Jets of Active Galactic Nuclei Associated with Helical Magnetic Fields?

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