Particle acceleration and the origin of the very high energy emission around black holes and relativistic jets

TL;DR

This paper explores how magnetic reconnection in accretion disks and jets around black holes accelerates particles to very high energies, potentially explaining observed VHE emissions and neutrinos from AGNs and other sources.

Contribution

It demonstrates through relativistic MHD simulations that magnetic reconnection can accelerate particles to PeV energies, linking this process to observed high-energy astrophysical phenomena.

Findings

Magnetic reconnection sites can accelerate particles to PeV energies.

Reconnection-driven turbulence explains VHE luminosity-black hole mass correlation.

Simulations show acceleration in both accretion disk coronae and relativistic jets.

Abstract

Particle acceleration induced by fast magnetic reconnection may help to solve current puzzles related to the interpretation of the very high energy (VHE) and neutrino missions from AGNs and compact sources in general. Our general relativistic-MHD simulations of accretion disk-corona systems reveal the growth of turbulence driven by MHD instabilities that lead to the development of fast magnetic reconnection in the corona. In addition, our simulations of relativistic MHD jets reveal the formation of several sites of fast reconnection induced by current-driven kink turbulence. The injection of thousands of test particles in these regions cause acceleration up to energies of several PeVs, thus demonstrating the ability of this process to accelerate particles and produce VHE and neutrino emission, specially in blazars. Finally, we discuss how reconnection can also explain the observed VHE luminosity-black hole mass correlation, involving hundreds of non-blazar sources like Perseus A, and black hole binaries.