Magnetosphere of a spinning black hole and the role of the current sheet

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the magnetosphere of spinning black holes, emphasizing the role of the current sheet in energy extraction and jet formation, providing analytic models and highlighting the importance of the current sheet in rapidly spinning cases.

Contribution

It offers an analytic description of jet solutions in low-spin black holes and underscores the critical role of the current sheet in high-spin black hole magnetospheres.

Findings

Analytic approximation for low-spin black hole jets.

Current sheet's role in energy extraction.

Importance of the current sheet in high-spin black holes.

Abstract

We revisit the problem of a spinning black hole immersed in a uniformly magnetized plasma within the context of force-free electrodynamics. Such configurations have been found to relax to stationary jetlike solutions that are powered by the rotational energy of the black hole. We write down an analytic description for the jet solutions in the low black hole spin limit, and demonstrate that it provides a good approximation to the configurations found dynamically. For characterizing the magnetospheres of rapidly spinning black holes, we find that the current sheet which forms in the black hole ergosphere plays an essential role. We study the properties of the current sheet, and its importance in determining the jet solution and the rate at which energy is extracted from the black hole.