Tuesday, January 24, 2012

1201.4385 (Alexander Tchekhovskoy et al.)

Prograde and Retrograde Black Holes: Whose Jet is More Powerful?    [PDF]

Alexander Tchekhovskoy, Jonathan C. McKinney
We study prograde and retrograde disc accretion on rapidly spinning black holes (BHs) via global 3D time-dependent non-radiative general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. Our discs contain more large-scale vertical magnetic flux than the accreting gas can push into the BH. As a result, the BH becomes saturated with flux, and strong centrally concentrated large-scale magnetic fields form that obstruct the accretion and lead to a magnetically arrested disc. We show that the efficiency with which such accretion systems generate steady outflows depends only on the dimensionless BH spin, a, and accretion disc angular thickness, h/r. Prograde BHs with thick discs (h/r ~ 0.3-0.6) generate jets and outflows several times more efficiently than retrograde BHs, for the same absolute value of spin. Both orientations can reach high values of outflow efficiency, eta ~ 100%, with higher efficiency values for thicker discs.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.4385

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