Powerful non-thermal emission in black-hole powered sources

TL;DR

This paper reviews the mechanisms and characteristics of powerful non-thermal emissions from black-hole jets across different astrophysical sources, emphasizing common physics and source-specific differences.

Contribution

It provides a qualitative overview of non-thermal emission processes in black-hole jets and compares different classes of sources like AGNs, GRBs, and microquasars.

Findings

Non-thermal populations of particles are generated via various mechanisms.

Multiple emission processes contribute to observed spectra.

Black-hole systems share fundamental physics despite diverse phenomenologies.

Abstract

Powerful non-thermal emission has been detected coming from relativistic collimated outflows launched in the vicinity of black holes of a very wide range of masses, from few to $\sim 10^{10}$ M$_{\odot}$. At different scales along the outflows, i.e. $\sim 10-10^{10} R_{\rm Sch}$ from the black hole, the local conditions can lead to the generation of non-thermal populations of particles via, e.g., magnetic reconnection, magneto-centrifugal mechanisms, diffusive processes, or the so-called converter mechanism. These non-thermal populations of particles, interacting with dense matter, magnetic, and radiation fields, could yield radio-to-gamma-ray emission via synchrotron process, inverse Compton scattering, relativistic Bremsstrahlung, proton-proton and photo-hadron colissions, and even heavy nuclei photo-disintegration. Other processes, like pair creation or the development of electromagnetic cascades, could be also relevant in black-hole jets and their surroundings. Black holes of different masses, accretion rates and environments show different phenomenologies, as can be observed in AGNs, GRBs or microquasars. Nonetheless, these sources basically share the same fundamental physics: accretion, black-hole rotation, plus an environment, but they are individualized due to their own specific conditions. In this paper, we qualitatively review the main characteristics of the non-thermal emission produced in jets from black holes, giving also a brief overview on the physical properties of black hole/jet systems. We comment as well on some important differences and similarities between classes of sources, and on the prospects for the study of the non-thermal emission from astrophysical sources powered by black holes.