The role of the ergosphere in the Blandford-Znajek process

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electromagnetic fields evolve around rotating stars with ergospheres, confirming that the Blandford-Znajek process is not directly linked to black hole horizons and depends exponentially on stellar compactness.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the Blandford-Znajek mechanism operates independently of black hole horizons and explores the energy dependence on stellar compactness in rotating star spacetimes.

Findings

Blandford-Znajek process is not directly related to black hole horizons.

Radiated energy depends exponentially on star compactness.

Electromagnetic fields evolve on ergosphere-containing spacetimes.

Abstract

The Blandford-Znajek process, one of the most promising model for powering the relativistic jets from black holes, was initially introduced as a mechanism in which the magnetic fields extract energy from a rotating black hole. We study the evolution of force-free electromagnetic fields on regular spacetimes with an ergosphere, which are generated by rapidly rotating stars. Our conclusive results confirm previous works, claiming that the Blandford-Znajek mechanism is not directly related to the horizon of the black hole. We also show that the radiated energy depends exponentially on the compactness of the star.