Dual Jets from Binary Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper investigates how binary black holes in magnetic environments can produce dual jets through electromagnetic energy extraction, potentially observable as electromagnetic signals during black hole mergers.

Contribution

It extends the Blandford-Znajek mechanism to binary black hole systems, providing numerical evidence for dual jet formation during inspiral and merger.

Findings

Possible dual jets driven by binary black holes.

Electromagnetic energy extraction from black hole orbits.

Observable electromagnetic emissions during mergers.

Abstract

Supermassive black holes are found at the centers of most galaxies and their inspiral is a natural outcome when galaxies merge. The inspiral of these systems is of utmost astrophysical importance as prodigious producers of gravitational waves and in their possible role in energetic electromagnetic events. We study such binary black hole coalescence under the influence of an external magnetic field produced by the expected circumbinary disk surrounding them. Solving the Einstein equations to describe the spacetime and using the force-free approach for the electromagnetic fields and the tenuous plasma, we present numerical evidence for possible jets driven by these systems. Extending the process described by Blandford and Znajek for a single spinning black hole, the picture that emerges suggests the electromagnetic field extracts energy from the orbiting black holes, which ultimately merge and settle into the standard Blandford-Znajek scenario. Emissions along dual and single jets would be expected that could be observable to large distances.