Electromagnetic Energy Extraction from Kerr Black Holes: Ab-Initio Calculations

Abstract

The possibility of extracting energy from a rotating black hole via the Blandford-Znajek mechanism represents a cornerstone of relativistic astrophysics. We present general-relativistic collisionless kinetic simulations of Kerr black-hole magnetospheres covering a wide range in the black-hole spin. Considering a classical split-monopole magnetic field, we can reproduce with these ab-initio calculations the force-free electrodynamics of rotating black holes and measure the power of the jet launched as a function of the spin. The Blandford-Znajek luminosity we find is in very good agreement with analytic calculations and compatible with general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations via a simple rescaling. These results provide strong evidence of the robustness of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism and accurate estimates of the electromagnetic luminosity to be expected in those scenarios involving rotating black holes across the mass scale.

v1: 11 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; v2: matches version accepted in ApJL

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Role of Inhomogeneities in the Turbulent Accretion of Black Holes
• Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Giant Magnetar Bursts
• Universality of the Blandford-Znajek emission in stationary and axisymmetric spacetimes
• FPIC: a new Particle-In-Cell code for stationary and axisymmetric black-hole spacetimes
• Charged particle dynamics in magnetosphere generated by current loop around Schwarzschild black hole