Physics of Pair Producing Gaps in Black Hole Magnetospheres

Abstract

In some low-luminosity accreting supermassive black hole systems, the supply of plasma in the funnel region can be a problem. It is believed that a local region with unscreened electric field can exist in the black hole magnetosphere, accelerating particles and producing high energy gamma-rays that can create $e^{\pm }$ pairs. We carry out time-dependent self-consistent 1D PIC simulations of this process, including inverse Compton scattering and photon tracking. We find a highly time-dependent solution where a macroscopic gap opens quasi-periodically to create $e^{\pm }$ pairs and high energy radiation. If this gap is operating at the base of the jet in M87, we expect an intermittency on the order of a few $r_g/c$, which coincides with the time scale of the observed TeV flares from the same object. For Sagittarius A* the gap electric field can potentially grow to change the global magnetospheric structure, which may explain the lack of a radio jet at the center of our galaxy.

arXiv comment3 figures, submitted to ApJL

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Cited by in corpus (29)

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• First-Principles Plasma Simulations of Black-Hole Jet Launching
• Accelerating AGN jets to parsec scales using general relativistic MHD simulations
• Black Hole Pulsar
• Magnetically Modified Spherical Accretion in GRMHD: Reconnection-Driven Convection and Jet Propagation
• Analytical Solution of Magnetically Dominated Astrophysical Jets and Winds: Jet Launching, Acceleration, and Collimation
• Radio Galaxies at VHE energies
• Multi-messenger tests of cosmic-ray acceleration in radiatively inefficient accretion flows
• Physics of Pair Producing Gaps in Black Hole Magnetospheres II -- General Relativity
• Pair Drizzle around Sub-Eddington Supermassive Black Holes
• Black Hole Spin Signature in the Black Hole Shadow of M87 in the Flaring State
• Positron Effects on Polarized Images and Spectra from Jet and Accretion Flow Models of M87* and Sgr A*
• Radiation GRMHD simulations of M87: funnel properties and prospects for gap acceleration
• A Mechanism for Triple-Ridge Emission Structure of AGN Jets
• Magnetic Reconnection in Black-Hole Magnetospheres: Lepton Loading into Jets, Superluminal Radio Blobs, and Multi-wavelength Flares
• Implications from the velocity profile of the M87 jet: a possibility of a slowly rotating black hole magnetosphere
• General relativistic effects and the near-infrared and X-ray variability of Sgr A* I
• Black Hole Discharge: very-high-energy gamma rays from black hole-neutron star mergers
• Gap-type Particle Acceleration in the Magnetospheres of Rotating Supermassive Black Holes
• Very High-Energy Emission from the Direct Vicinity of Rapidly Rotating Black Holes
• Two-dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations of axisymmetric black hole magnetospheres
• Toward a Full MHD Jet Model of Spinning Black Holes--II: Kinematics and Application to the M87 Jet
• Towards a Full MHD Jet Model of Spinning Black Holes--I: Framework and a split monopole example
• Physics of Pair Producing Gaps in Black Hole Magnetospheres: Two Dimensional General Relativistic Particle-in-cell Simulations
• Electron-beam interaction with emission-line clouds in blazars
• Inverse Compton Cascades in Pair-Producing Gaps: Effects of Triplet Pair Production
• Pair-Regulated Klein-Nishina Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection with Applications to Blazars and Accreting Black Holes