Hot plasma may explain how rapidly feeding black holes launch powerful jets
Some supermassive black holes rapidly consume surrounding matter while simultaneously firing powerful streams of plasma into space at nearly the speed of light. However, this creates a physical puzzle: rapid feeding is expected to form a cold, flat accretion disk around the black hole, which prevents powerful jets from forming.
A research team led by Tohoku University's Hirofumi Noda and Nagoya City University's Kazuhiro Hada has discovered that hot plasma surrounding rapidly feeding supermassive black holes may be responsible for launching powerful jets. Traditionally, a cold, flat accretion disk around the black hole has been thought to prevent such jets from forming.
However, by combining observations from the XRISM X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission with radio and millimeter telescopes, the team found that the hot plasma flow extends beyond the cold accretion disk, allowing magnetic fields to accumulate and channel the black hole's rotational energy into a powerful jet. This discovery provides new insights into the extreme environment near supermassive black holes and may help scientists better understand the complex interactions between matter, magnetic fields, and black hole rotation in these environments.
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