Magnetic seed generation by plasma heat flux in accretion disks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new mechanism where heat flux in a curved spacetime accretion disk can generate initial magnetic seed fields, highlighting the role of non-ideal fluid effects in astrophysical magnetic field origins.

Contribution

It proposes a novel heat flux-driven magnetic seed generation mechanism in accretion disks around black holes, considering non-ideal fluid effects in curved spacetime.

Findings

Heat flux dominates magnetic seed generation at specific disk locations.

Magnetic fields grow linearly over time due to heat flux coupling with spacetime curvature.

The effect depends on thermodynamic properties of the accretion disk.

Abstract

Context. Magnetic batteries are potential sources that may drive the generation of a seed magnetic field, even if this field is initially zero. These batteries can be the result of non-aligned thermodynamic gradients in a plasma, as well as of special and general relativistic effects. So far, magnetic batteries have only been studied in ideal magnetized fluids. Aims. We study the non-ideal fluid effects introduced by the energy flux in the vortical dynamics of a magnetized plasma in curved spacetime. We propose a novel mechanism for generating a heat flux-driven magnetic seed within a simple accretion disk model around a Schwarzschild black hole. Methods. We use the 3+1 formalism for the splitting of the space-time metric into space-like and time-like components. We study the vortical dynamics of a magnetized fluid with a heat flux in the Schwarzschild geometry in which thermodynamic and hydrodynamic quantities are only dependent on the radial coordinate. Assuming that the magnetic field is initially zero, we estimate linear time evolution of the magnetic field due to the inclusion of non-ideal fluid effects. Results. When the thermodynamic and hydrodynamic quantities vary only radially, the effect of the coupling between the heat flux, spacetime curvature and fluid velocity acts as the primary driver for an initial linearly time growing magnetic field. The plasma heat flux completely dominates the magnetic field generation at an specific distance from the black hole, where the fluid vorticity vanishes. This distance depends on the thermodynamical properties of the Keplerian plasma accretion disk. These properties control the strength of the non-ideal effects in the generation of seed magnetic fields.