Spinning Black Hole Powers Jet by Magnetic Flux

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Quasar 3C279

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The center of quasar 3C279 releases flickering gamma radiation, which is particular of the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection. Credit: Amit Shukla / Indian Institute of Technology Indore

A brand-new letter has actually been discovered in the strange alphabet of great voids. Two astrophysicists share this discovery in the journal Nature Communications.

Black holes are at the center of practically all galaxies that have actually been studied up until now. They have an unimaginably big mass and for that reason bring in matter, gas, and even light. But they can likewise produce matter in the type of plasma jets — a sort of plasma beam that is ejected from the center of the galaxy with incredible energy. A plasma jet can extend numerous hundred thousand light years far into area.

When this extreme radiation is given off, the great void stays surprise due to the fact that the light rays near it are highly bent causing the look of a shadow. This was just recently reported by scientists of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) cooperation for the enormous great void in the huge ellipse galaxy M87.

In quasar 3C279 – likewise a great void – the EHT group discovered another phenomenon: At a range of more than a thousand times the shadow of the great void, the core of a plasma jet unexpectedly illuminated. How the energy for this jet might arrive as if through an unnoticeable chimney was not yet understood.

Extremely flickering gamma radiation found

This quasar has actually now been observed with the NASA area telescope Fermi-LAT by the astrophysicist Amit Shukla, who up until 2018 researched at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany. He now is operating at the Indian Institute of Technology in Indore. Shukla found that the core of the jet, which was discovered in the millimeter wavelength variety, likewise releases high-energy gamma radiation, however with an incredibly flickering brightness. This brightness can double within a couple of minutes, as reported in the journal Nature Communications.

The unique pattern of the series of brightness modifications is particular of a universal procedure called magnetic reconnection, which takes place in numerous astrophysical items with strong electromagnetic fields. Solar activity likewise involves the characteristics of electromagnetic fields and reconnection. This was just recently shown by observing “campfires” in the solar environment with the “Solar Orbiter” objective of the European Space Agency ESA.

Invisibly saved energy is unexpectedly launched

But back to the quasar 3C279: “I saw how the analysis of the data revealed the special pattern of magnetic reconnection in the light curve. It felt as if I had suddenly deciphered a hieroglyph in the black hole alphabet,” states Amit Shukla gladly.

During reconnection, energy that is at first saved undetectably in the electromagnetic field is unexpectedly launched in many “mini-jets.” In these jets, particles are sped up, which then produce the observed gamma radiation. Magnetic reconnection would discuss how the energy reaches the jet’s core from the great void and where it eventually originates from.

Energy from the spinning great void

Professor Karl Mannheim, head of the JMU Chair of Astronomy and co-author of the publication, describes: “Spacetime near the black hole in the quasar 3C279 is forced to swirl around in corotation.  Magnetic fields anchored to the plasma around the black hole expel the jet slowing down the black hole’s rotation and converting part of its rotational energy into radiation.”

Reference: “Gamma-ray flares from relativistic magnetic reconnection in the jet of the quasar 3C 279” by A. Shukla and K. Mannheim, 21 August 2020, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17912-z