Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 924, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac46a1
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Funding
- NSF [PHY-1125915, PHY129, OISE-1743747]
- US Department of Energy office of Science User Facility [DE-AC05-00OR22725]
- Scientific Computing Core at the Flatiron Institute, a division of the Simons Foundation
- Texas Advanced Computing Center [LRAC-AST20008]
- National Science Foundation [OAC-1818253, AST-1910248, PHY-2010145, AST-1815304, AST-1911080]
- Joint Princeton/Flatiron Postdoctoral Fellowship
- John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellowship
- ITC Fellowship
- black hole Initiative Fellowship
- Harvard University
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- John Templeton Foundation
- Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), Virtual Institute of Accretion (VIA) postdoctoral fellowship
- Simons Foundation
- Dutch Research Council (NWO) [639.043.513]
- Northwestern University
- UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Stephen Hawking Fellowship
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This study presents the first observation of plasmoid-mediated reconnection in a 3D magnetically arrested disk through extremely high-resolution simulations. The research shows that magnetic reconnection can power flares from accreting black holes and explains certain observed features.
Magnetic reconnection can power bright, rapid flares originating from the inner magnetosphere of accreting black holes. We conduct extremely high-resolution (5376 x 2304 x 2304 cells) general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations, capturing plasmoid-mediated reconnection in a 3D magnetically arrested disk for the first time. We show that an equatorial, plasmoid-unstable current sheet forms in a transient, nonaxisymmetric, low-density magnetosphere within the inner few Schwarzschild radii. Magnetic flux bundles escape from the event horizon through reconnection at the universal plasmoid-mediated rate in this current sheet. The reconnection feeds on the highly magnetized plasma in the jets and heats the plasma that ends up trapped in flux bundles to temperatures proportional to the jet's magnetization. The escaped flux bundles can complete a full orbit as low-density hot spots, consistent with Sgr A* observations by the GRAVITY interferometer. Reconnection near the horizon produces sufficiently energetic plasma to explain flares from accreting black holes, such as the TeV emission observed from M87. The drop in the mass accretion rate during the flare and the resulting low-density magnetosphere make it easier for very-high-energy photons produced by reconnection-accelerated particles to escape. The extreme-resolution results in a converged plasmoid-mediated reconnection rate that directly determines the timescales and properties of the flare.
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