Observable Emission Features of Black Hole GRMHD Jets on Event Horizon Scales

Abstract

The general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamical (GRMHD) formulation for black hole-powered jets naturally gives rise to a stagnation surface, wherefrom inflows and outflows along magnetic field lines that thread the black hole event horizon originate. We derive a conservative formulation for the transport of energetic electrons which are initially injected at the stagnation surface and subsequently transported along flow streamlines. With this formulation the energy spectra evolution of the electrons along the flow in the presence of radiative and adiabatic cooling is determined. For flows regulated by synchrotron radiative losses and adiabatic cooling, the effective radio emission region is found to be finite, and geometrically it is more extended along the jet central axis. Moreover, the emission from regions adjacent to the stagnation surface is expected to be the most luminous as this is where the freshly injected energetic electrons concentrate. An observable stagnation surface is thus a strong prediction of the GRMHD jet model with the prescribed non-thermal electron injection. Future millimeter/sub-millimeter (mm/sub-mm) very-long-baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations of supermassive black hole candidates, such as the one at the center of M87, can verify this GRMHD jet model and its associated non-thermal electron injection mechanism.

19 pages, 12 figure; accepted for publication in ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. V. Physical Origin of the Asymmetric Ring
• The Shadow of a Spherically Accreting Black Hole
• Faraday rotation in the jet of M87 inside the Bondi radius: indication of winds from hot accretion flows confining the relativistic jet
• GRMHD Simulations and Modeling for Jet Formation and Acceleration Region in AGNs
• Black Hole Spin Signature in the Black Hole Shadow of M87 in the Flaring State
• Properties of Trans-fast Magnetosonic Jets in Black Hole Magnetospheres
• A Jet-Bases Emission Model of the EHT 2017 Image of M87*
• Discovery of Limb Brightening in the Parsec-scale Jet of NGC 315 through Global Very Long Baseline Interferometry Observations and Its Implications for Jet Models
• On Beltrami states near black hole event horizon
• Illuminating Black Hole Shadow with Dark Matter Annihilation
• The immediate environment of an astrophysical black hole