scholarly journals Centrifugal acceleration of protons by a supermassive black hole

2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (4) ◽  
pp. 4884-4891 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya N Istomin ◽  
A A Gunya

ABSTRACT Centrifugal acceleration is due to the rotating poloidal magnetic field in the magnetosphere that creates the electric field which is orthogonal to the magnetic field. Charged particles with finite cyclotron radii can move along the electric field and receive energy. Centrifugal acceleration pushes particles to the periphery, where their azimuthal velocity reaches the speed of light. We calculated particle trajectories by numerical and analytical methods. The maximum obtained energies depend on the parameter of the particle magnetization κ, which is the ratio of rotation frequency of magnetic field lines in the magnetosphere ΩF to non-relativistic cyclotron frequency of particles ωc, κ = ΩF/ωc <<1, and on the parameter α which is the ratio of toroidal magnetic field BT to the poloidal one BP, α = BT/BP. It is shown that for small toroidal fields, α < κ1/4, the maximum Lorentz factor γm is only the square root of magnetization, γm = κ−1/2, while for large toroidal fields, α > κ1/4, the energy increases significantly, γm = κ−2/3. However, the maximum possible acceleration, γm = κ−1, is not achieved in the magnetosphere. For a number of active galactic nuclei, such as M87, maximum values of Lorentz factor for accelerated protons are found. Also, for special case of Sgr. A*, estimations of the maximum proton energy and its energy flux are obtained. They are in agreement with experimental data obtained by HESS Cherenkov telescope.

1987 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 687
Author(s):  
RR Burman

Tn the axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere model of Mestel et al. (1985), electrons, following injection with non-negligible speeds from the stellar surface, flow with moderate acceleration, and with poloidal motion that is closely tied to poloidal magnetic field lines, before reaching a limiting surface, near which rapid acceleration occurs. The present paper continues an analysis of flows which either encounter the limiting surface beyond the light cylinder (between the cones of zero axial magnetic field), or do not meet it at all. The formalism introduced by Mestel et aL for the description of the outflow is applied in an extended version which fully incorporates Yo, the emission Lorentz factor of the particles. This treatment removes the singularity of Yo at the stellar poles that occurred in the earlier work: because of a nonuniformity in taking the limit of nonrelativistic injection, full incorporation of Yo acts to keep it finite.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (4) ◽  
pp. 5713-5727
Author(s):  
Kuldeep Singh ◽  
Indranil Chattopadhyay

ABSTRACT We study relativistic magnetized outflows using relativistic equation of state having variable adiabatic index (Γ) and composition parameter (ξ). We study the outflow in special relativistic magnetohydrodynamic regime, from sub-Alfvénic to super-fast domain. We showed that, after the solution crosses the fast point, magnetic field collimates the flow and may form a collimation-shock due to magnetic field pinching/squeezing. Such fast, collimated outflows may be considered as astrophysical jets. Depending on parameters, the terminal Lorentz factors of an electron–proton outflow can comfortably exceed few tens. We showed that due to the transfer of angular momentum from the field to the matter, the azimuthal velocity of the outflow may flip sign. We also study the effect of composition (ξ) on such magnetized outflows. We showed that relativistic outflows are affected by the location of the Alfvén point, the polar angle at the Alfvén point and also the angle subtended by the field lines with the equatorial plane, but also on the composition of the flow. The pair dominated flow experiences impressive acceleration and is hotter than electron–proton flow.


2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. M. Walker ◽  
G. J. Sofko

Abstract. When studying magnetospheric convection, it is often necessary to map the steady-state electric field, measured at some point on a magnetic field line, to a magnetically conjugate point in the other hemisphere, or the equatorial plane, or at the position of a satellite. Such mapping is relatively easy in a dipole field although the appropriate formulae are not easily accessible. They are derived and reviewed here with some examples. It is not possible to derive such formulae in more realistic geomagnetic field models. A new method is described in this paper for accurate mapping of electric fields along field lines, which can be used for any field model in which the magnetic field and its spatial derivatives can be computed. From the spatial derivatives of the magnetic field three first order differential equations are derived for the components of the normalized element of separation of two closely spaced field lines. These can be integrated along with the magnetic field tracing equations and Faraday's law used to obtain the electric field as a function of distance measured along the magnetic field line. The method is tested in a simple model consisting of a dipole field plus a magnetotail model. The method is shown to be accurate, convenient, and suitable for use with more realistic geomagnetic field models.


Author(s):  
Esmeralda Campos ◽  
Genaro Zavala

On Electricity & Magnetism (EM) courses at undergraduate level, the concept of electric field poses one of the most relevant and basic topics, along with the concept of magnetic field. Professors and students may use different diagrams as a tool to visualize the electric field, such as vectors or electric field lines. The present study aims to identify how students interpret and use electric field lines as a tool or resource to describe the electric field. Two versions of a test with open-ended questions were administered in Spanish in a private Mexican university to a random sample of students taking the EM course, and were analyzed with a qualitative approach. It was found that students do not interpret electric field lines diagrams correctly, which may lead to misconceptions. Many students based their answers on the concepts of superposition, force and repulsion.


1985 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 749 ◽  
Author(s):  
RR Burman

Mestel et al. (1985) have recently introduced an axisymmetric pulsar magnetosphere model in which electrons leave the star with speeds that are non-negligible, but not highly relativistic, and flow with moderate acceleration, and with poloidal motion that is closely tied to the poloidal magnetic field lines, before reaching a limiting surface, near which rapid acceleration occurs. This paper presents an analysis of flows which either encounter the limiting surface beyond the light cylinder or do not meet it at all.


Galaxies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kouichi Hirotani

When a black hole accretes plasmas at very low accretion rate, an advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF) is formed. In an ADAF, relativistic electrons emit soft gamma-rays via Bremsstrahlung. Some MeV photons collide with each other to materialize as electron-positron pairs in the magnetosphere. Such pairs efficiently screen the electric field along the magnetic field lines, when the accretion rate is typically greater than 0.03–0.3% of the Eddington rate. However, when the accretion rate becomes smaller than this value, the number density of the created pairs becomes less than the rotationally induced Goldreich–Julian density. In such a charge-starved magnetosphere, an electric field arises along the magnetic field lines to accelerate charged leptons into ultra-relativistic energies, leading to an efficient TeV emission via an inverse-Compton (IC) process, spending a portion of the extracted hole’s rotational energy. In this review, we summarize the stationary lepton accelerator models in black hole magnetospheres. We apply the model to super-massive black holes and demonstrate that nearby low-luminosity active galactic nuclei are capable of emitting detectable gamma-rays between 0.1 and 30 TeV with the Cherenkov Telescope Array.


2019 ◽  
Vol 490 (2) ◽  
pp. 2200-2218 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Chatterjee ◽  
M Liska ◽  
A Tchekhovskoy ◽  
S B Markoff

ABSTRACT Accreting black holes produce collimated outflows, or jets, that traverse many orders of magnitude in distance, accelerate to relativistic velocities, and collimate into tight opening angles. Of these, perhaps the least understood is jet collimation due to the interaction with the ambient medium. In order to investigate this interaction, we carried out axisymmetric general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of jets produced by a large accretion disc, spanning over 5 orders of magnitude in time and distance, at an unprecedented resolution. Supported by such a disc, the jet attains a parabolic shape, similar to the M87 galaxy jet, and the product of the Lorentz factor and the jet half-opening angle, γθ ≪ 1, similar to values found from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) jets; this suggests extended discs in AGNs. We find that the interaction between the jet and the ambient medium leads to the development of pinch instabilities, which produce significant radial and lateral variability across the jet by converting magnetic and kinetic energy into heat. Thus pinched regions in the jet can be detectable as radiating hotspots and may provide an ideal site for particle acceleration. Pinching also causes gas from the ambient medium to become squeezed between magnetic field lines in the jet, leading to enhanced mass loading and deceleration of the jet to non-relativistic speeds, potentially contributing to the spine-sheath structure observed in AGN outflows.


1990 ◽  
Vol 138 ◽  
pp. 391-394
Author(s):  
A.E. Dudorov ◽  
V.N. Krivodubskij ◽  
A.A. Ruzmaikin ◽  
T.V. Ruzmaikina

The behaviour of the magnetic field during the formation and evolution of the Sun is investigated. It is shown that an internal poloidal magnetic field of the order of 104 − 105 G near the core of the Sun may be compatible with differential rotation and with torsional waves, travelling along the magnetic field lines (Dudorov et al., 1989).


2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Bolourian ◽  
Pejman Khorshid ◽  
Mahmoud Ghoranneviss ◽  
Siamak Mohammadi ◽  
Reza Arvin ◽  
...  

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 258-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qinghuan Luo

AbstractThe effects of the specific geometry of the magnetic field (such as field lines with torsion) on curvature emission and absorption in pulsar magnetospheres are discussed. Curvature maser emission can arise from two effects: the curvature drift, as has already been discussed in the literature, and field line torsion as discussed here in detail for the first time. Maser emission due to field line torsion can operate only when the Lorentz factor is larger than a certain value. However, when the Lorentz factor of electrons or positrons is sufficiently high, curvature masering is due to both curvature drift and magnetic field line torsion. The optical depth in the case of field line torsion is estimated. It is shown that if torsion is due to rotation, the resultant luminosity should be dependent on the rotation period in such a way that shorter periods correspond to larger luminosities.


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