Open AccessGeneral relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of monopole magnetospheres of black holes
Author(s) -
Komissarov S. S.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07738.x
Subject(s) - physics , magnetohydrodynamic drive , event horizon , poynting vector , black hole (networking) , magnetohydrodynamics , quantum electrodynamics , classical mechanics , magnetic monopole , rotating black hole , sonic black hole , mechanics , astrophysics , computational physics , accretion (finance) , event (particle physics) , plasma , magnetic field , quantum mechanics , computer network , routing protocol , routing (electronic design automation) , computer science , link state routing protocol , de sitter–schwarzschild metric
In this paper, we report on the results of the first ever time‐dependent general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the magnetically dominated monopole magnetospheres of black holes. It is found that the numerical solution evolves towards a stable steady‐state solution which is very close to the corresponding force‐free solution found by Blandford & Znajek. Contrary to the recent claims, the particle inertia does not become dynamically important near the event horizon and the force‐free approximation provides a proper framework for magnetically dominated magnetospheres of black holes. For the first time, our numerical simulations show the development of an ultrarelativistic particle wind from a rotating black hole. However, the flow remains Poynting‐dominated all the way up to the fast critical point. This suggests that the details of the so‐called ‘astrophysical load’, where the electromagnetic energy is transferred to particles, may have no effect on the efficiency of the Blandford–Znajek mechanism.