Acceleration of charged particles due to chaotic scattering in the combined black hole gravitational field and asymptotically uniform magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper investigates how chaotic scattering of charged particles near a black hole in a uniform magnetic field can lead to efficient acceleration and escape of particles, potentially explaining relativistic jet formation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism of particle acceleration via chaotic scattering in combined gravitational and magnetic fields, independent of black hole rotation.

Findings

Chaotic scattering enables ultra-relativistic particle acceleration.

Ionization of particles in accretion disks can produce relativistic jets.

Acceleration is most efficient along magnetic field lines.

Abstract

To test the role of large-scale magnetic fields in accretion processes, we study dynamics of charged test particles in vicinity of a black hole immersed into an asymptotically uniform magnetic field. Using the Hamiltonian formalism of charged particle dynamics, we examine chaotic scattering in the effective potential related to the black hole gravitational field combined with the uniform magnetic field. Energy interchange between the translational and oscillatory modes od the charged particle dynamics provides mechanism for charged particle acceleration along the magnetic field lines. This energy transmutation is an attribute of the chaotic charged particle dynamics in the combined gravitational and magnetic fields only, the black hole rotation is not necessary for such charged particle acceleration. The chaotic scatter can cause transition to the motion along the magnetic field lines with small radius of the Larmor motion or vanishing Larmor radius, when the speed of the particle translational motion is largest and can be ultra-relativistic. We discuss consequences of the model of ionization of test particles forming a neutral accretion disc, or heavy ions following off-equatorial circular orbits, and we explore the fate of heavy charged test particles after ionization where no kick of heavy ions is assumed and only switch-on effect of the magnetic field is relevant. We demonstrate that acceleration and escape of the ionized particles can be efficient along the Kerr black hole symmetry axis parallel to the magnetic field lines. We show that strong acceleration of ionized particles to ultra-relativistic velocities is preferred in the direction close to the magnetic field lines. Therefore, the process of ionization of Keplerian discs around Kerr black holes can serve as a model of relativistic jets.