2006/02/28 by Keigo Fukumura, Masaaki Takahashi, Sachiko Tsuruta · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black hole (networking) #Computer science #Computer security #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Geology #Magnetohydrodynamic drive #Magnetohydrodynamics #Mechanics #Nuclear physics #Physics #Plasma #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/510660
29 pages, 7 b/w figures, accepted to ApJ (v3), figure labels corrected
arxiv created 2006/11/08 · openalex publication_date 2007/03/01 · arxiv updated 2015/06/24 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) standing shocks in inflowing plasmas in a black hole magnetosphere. Fast and intermediate shock formation is explored in Schwarzschild and Kerr geometry to illustrate general relativistic effects. We find that nonequatorial standing MHD shocks are physically possible, creating a very hot plasma region close to the event horizon. Shocked downstream plasmas can be heated or magnetized depending on the values of various magnetic field-aligned parameters. Then we may expect high-energy thermal/nonthermal emissions from the shocked region. We present the properties of nonequatorial MHD shocks and discuss the shocked plasma region in the black hole magnetosphere. We also investigate the effects of the poloidal magnetic field and black hole spin on the properties of shocks and show that both effects can modify the distribution of the shock front and shock strength. We find for strong MHD shock formation that fast rotating magnetic fields are necessary. The physics of nonequatorial MHD shocks in the black hole magnetosphere could be very important when we construct the central engine model of various astrophysical phenomena.