Non-thermal transient sources from rotating black holes

TL;DR

This paper explores how rotating black holes can generate extreme non-thermal transient sources, linking gamma-ray bursts, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, and active galactic nuclei through a unified model involving black hole spin-down and relativistic emissions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model connecting black hole spin dynamics to diverse high-energy astrophysical phenomena, supported by observational evidence from BATSE light curves and cosmic ray energies.

Findings

Exponential decay in BATSE GRB light curves consistent with viscous spin-down time-scale.

Detection of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays near the GZK threshold linked to black hole acceleration.

Absence of UHECRs from BL Lac objects explained by emission angles relative to black hole spin-axis.

Abstract

Rotating black holes can power the most extreme non-thermal transient sources. They have a long-duration viscous time-scale of spin-down and produce non-thermal emissions along their spin-axis, powered by a relativistic capillary effect. We report on the discovery of exponential decay in BATSE light curves of long GRBs by matched filtering, consistent with a viscous time-scale, and identify UHECRs energies about the GZK threshold in linear acceleration of ion contaminants along the black hole spin-axis, consistent with black hole masses and lifetimes of FR II AGN. We explain the absence of UHECRs from BL Lac objects due to UHECR emissions preferably at appreciable angles away from the black hole spin-axis. Black hole spin may be key to unification of GRBs and their host environments, and to AGN and their host galaxies. Our model points to long duration bursts in radio from long GRBs without supernovae and gravitational-waves from all long GRBs.