Black Hole Jet Unification in the Fermi Era

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that jets from AGNs and GRBs follow similar luminosity-power correlations, indicating a universal jet production mechanism across vastly different astrophysical scales, based on Fermi and Swift observations.

Contribution

It provides the first observational evidence of a unified jet mechanism in AGNs and GRBs, spanning ten orders of magnitude in jet power.

Findings

Blazar and GRB jets follow the same gamma-ray luminosity and kinetic power correlation.

Jet production mechanisms are similar across different astrophysical objects.

Supports a universal model for relativistic jet formation and energy dissipation.

Abstract

AGNs and GRBs produce powerful relativistic jets and their central engines share the same basic astrophysical ingredients, despite the vastly different mass scales. Using Fermi and Swift observations, we find evidence that the jets produced by blazars and GRBs follow the same correlation between the gamma-ray luminosity and kinetic power. This result suggests that jet production and energy dissipation mechanisms are remarkably similar over 10 orders of magnitude in jet power, establishing a physical analogy between AGN and GRBs. We discuss the implications of these results and the road ahead.