On the efficiency of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism for low angular momentum relativistic accretion

TL;DR

This paper investigates the maximum efficiency of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism in low angular momentum, quasi-spherical accretion flows around black holes, revealing low overall efficiency but higher than radiative losses, with shocks enhancing energy extraction.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of BZ efficiency for weakly rotating, quasi-spherical accretion flows, including shocked and shock-free cases, in the Kerr metric.

Findings

Maximum efficiency is about 0.1% without ram pressure.

Including ram pressure increases efficiency by a factor of 15.

Shocked flows yield higher efficiency than shock-free flows.

Abstract

Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism has usually been studied in the literature for accretion with considerably high angular momentum leading either to the formation of a cold Keplerian disc, or a hot and geometrically thick sub-Keplerian flow as described within the framework of ADAF/RIAF. However, in nearby elliptical galaxies, as well as for our own Galactic centre, accretion with very low angular momentum is prevalent. Such quasi-spherical strongly sub-Keplerian accretion has complex dynamical features and can accommodate stationary shocks. In this letter, we present our calculation for the maximum efficiency obtainable through the BZ mechanism for complete general relativistic weakly rotating axisymmetric flow in the Kerr metric. Both shocked and shock free flow has been studied in detail for rotating and counter rotating accretion. Such study has never been done in the literature before. We find that the energy extraction efficiency is low, about 0.1%, and increases by a factor 15 if the ram pressure is included. Such an efficiency is still much higher than the radiative efficiency of such optically thin flows. For BZ mechanism, shocked flow produces higher efficiency than the shock free solutions and retrograde flow provides a slightly larger value of the efficiency than that for the prograde flow.