Related papers: Comprehensive analysis of magnetospheric gaps arou…
We investigate the dynamics and emission of a starved magnetospheric region (gap) formed in the vicinity of a Kerr black hole horizon, using a new, fully general relativistic particle-in-cell code that implements Monte Carlo methods to…
Black holes can launch powerful jets through the Blandford-Znajek process. This relies on enough plasma in the jet funnel to conduct the necessary current. However, in some low luminosity active galactic nuclei, the plasma supply near the…
Under conditions prevailing in certain classes of compact astrophysical systems, the active magnetosphere of a rotating black hole becomes charge-starved, giving rise to formation of a spark gap in which plasma is continuously produced. The…
Black holes are known to launch powerful relativistic jets and emit highly variable gamma radiation. How these jets are loaded with plasma remains poorly understood. Spark gaps are thought to drive particle acceleration and pair creation in…
In the absence of a sufficient amount of plasma injection into the black hole (BH) magnetosphere, the force-free state of the magnetosphere cannot be maintained, leading to the emergence of strong, time-dependent, longitudinal electric…
We study the response of a starved Kerr black hole magnetosphere to abrupt changes in the intensity of disk emission and in the global magnetospheric current, by means of 1D general relativistic particle-in-cell simulations. Such changes…
Context: The origin of ultra-rapid flares of very high-energy radiation from active galactic nuclei remains elusive. Magnetospheric processes, occurring in the close vicinity of the central black hole, could account for these flares. Aims:…
(Abridged) An issue of considerable interest in the theory of jet formation by the Blandford-Znajek mechanism, is how plasma is being continuously supplied to the magnetosphere to maintain it in a force-free state. Injection of…
This is the second paper in a series where we examine the physics of pair producing gaps in low-luminosity accreting supermassive black hole systems. In this paper, we carry out time-dependent self-consistent fully general relativistic 1D…
Some active galactic nuclei, microquasars, and gamma ray bursts may be powered by the electromagnetic braking of a rapidly rotating black hole. We investigate this possibility via axisymmetric numerical simulations of a black hole…
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,…
The detection of rapidly variable gamma-ray emission in active galactic nuclei has generated renewed interest in magnetospheric particle acceleration and emission scenarios. In order to explore its potential, we study the possibility of…
We quantitatively study the stationary, axisymmetric, force-free magnetospheres of spinning (Kerr) black holes (BHs) and the conditions needed for relativistic jets to be powered by the Blandford-Znajek mechanism. These jets could be from…
An electron-positron cascade in the magnetospheres of Kerr Black Holes (BH) is a fundamental ingredient to fueling the relativistic $\gamma$-ray jets seen at the polar regions of galactic supermassive BHs (SMBH). This leptonic cascade…
In this paper we report the results of axisymmetric relativistic MHD simulations for the problem of Kerr black hole immersed into a rarefied plasma with ''uniform'' magnetic field. The long term solution shows properties which are…
Black holes drive powerful plasma jets to relativistic velocities. This plasma should be collisionless, and self-consistently supplied by pair creation near the horizon. We present general-relativistic collisionless plasma simulations of…
Context: At the low accretion-rates typical for BL Lac-objects, magnetospheres of active galactic nuclei can develop vacuum gaps with strong electric fields accelerating charged seed particles parallel to the magnetic fields up to…
To explain the pulsed emission of the rotation powered pulsars from radio to gamma-ray, the polar cap models, the slot gap models, and the outer gap models are proposed. The recent observations suggest that these models are likely to…
A time-dependent model for pair creation in a pulsar magnetosphere is developed. It is argued that the parallel electric field that develops in a charge-starved region (a gap) of a pulsar magnetosphere oscillates with large amplitude.…
Recent advances in numerical algorithms and computational power have enabled first-principles simulations of pulsar magnetospheres using Particle-in-Cell (PIC) techniques. These ab-initio simulations seem to indicate that pair creation…