Dual Jets from Binary Black Holes

Abstract

The coalescence of supermassive black holes--a natural outcome when galaxies merge--should produce gravitational waves and would likely be associated with energetic electromagnetic events. We have studied the coalescence of such binary black holes within an external magnetic field produced by the expected circumbinary disk surrounding them. Solving the Einstein equations to describe black holes interacting with surrounding plasma, we present numerical evidence for possible jets driven by these systems. Extending the process described by Blandford and Znajek for a single, spinning black hole, the picture that emerges suggests that the electromagnetic field extracts energy from the orbiting black holes, which ultimately merge and settle into the standard Blandford-Znajek scenario. Emissions along these jets could potentially be observable at large distances.

Radiation from particles with arbitrary energy falling into higher-dimensional black holes

“…The inspiral and merger of BH binaries is a primary target for Earth-based and space-based gravitational-wave detectors [1]. In gas-rich environments, BH mergers may be associated with detectable electromagnetic precursors or afterglows [2,3] and even drive the production of jets [4]. In high-energy physics, the gauge/gravity duality [5,6] has created a powerful framework for the study of strongly coupled gauge theories, with applications in connection with the experimental program on heavy ion collisions at RHIC [7] and LHC [8,9], among many others.…”

Ultrafast Outflows From Black Hole Mergers With a Minidisk

“…In particular, if the association with a short-duration GRB detected by Fermi-GBM is real, such a jet component is necessary to explain the observed gamma-ray luminosity of L iso γ ∼ 10 49 erg s −1 . As commonly discussed in the literature of EM counterparts of supermassive BH binaries (Schnittman 2011;Mösta et al 2010;Palenzuela et al 2010), a merged BH is spinning and its rotation energy can be extracted via the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) process (Blandford & Znajek 1977).…”

Plasma-Wave Generation in a Dynamic Spacetime

“…Such a source term generates 2 y in the multipolar-expansion manner of Equation (12) µ W . In Figure 1, we plot the Ω-dependent luminosities for both fast-magnetosonic and Alfvén waves, for an equal-mass binary system (as is simulated in Palenzuela et al 2010b, Neilsen et al 2011and Alic et al 2012, with the cutoff radius chosen at 1.5 times the horizon radius (it turns out that the results are insensitive to the cutoff radius). More specifically, we substitute the density profiles appropriate for point masses following Newtonian Keplerian orbits into Equation (11), and feed the resulting metric perturbation into the right-hand side of Equation (5) to obtain the expressions for S 1 and S 2 .…”

“…Thanks to the seminal works by Goldreich & Julian (1969) and Blandford & Znajek (1977), it is widely accepted that force-free plasma can act as a medium for powering outgoing EM radiation (or jets) at a cost of reducing the rotational energy of neutrons stars or black holes (Thorne 1994;Spruit et al 1997;Palenzuela et al 2011;Hansen & Lyutikov 2001;Meier 2012). More recent studies (Hansen & Lyutikov 2001;Palenzuela et al 2009Palenzuela et al , 2010aPalenzuela et al , 2010bPalenzuela et al , 2010cLyutikov 2011;McWilliams & Levin 2011;Neilsen et al 2011;Alic et al 2012;Moesta et al 2012;DOrazio & Levin 2013;Morozova et al 2014;Penna 2015) suggest that a force-free plasma could also drain the (linear-motion) kinetic energy of moving objects to power EM radiations in the form of jets launching from star surfaces (or the black hole horizon), accompanied by some isotropic flux. We refer to this as the kinetic-motion-driven radiation, 5 which is also seen from satellites moving in earthʼs ionosphere (Drell et al 1965a(Drell et al , 1965b.…”