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Science 13 August 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5686, pp. 978 - 980
DOI: 10.1126/science.1100638
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Reports

Simulations of Jets Driven by Black Hole Rotation

Vladimir Semenov,1 Sergey Dyadechkin,1 Brian Punsly2,3*

The origin of jets emitted from black holes is not well understood; however, there are two possible energy sources: the accretion disk or the rotating black hole. Magnetohydrodynamic simulations show a well-defined jet that extracts energy from a black hole. If plasma near the black hole is threaded by large-scale magnetic flux, it will rotate with respect to asymptotic infinity, creating large magnetic stresses. These stresses are released as a relativistic jet at the expense of black hole rotational energy. The physics of the jet initiation in the simulations is described by the theory of black hole gravitohydromagnetics.

1 Institute of Physics, State University St. Petersburg, 198504 Russia.
2 Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, Boeing Electron Dynamic Devices, 3100 West Lomita Boulevard, Post Office Box 2999, Torrance, CA 90509–1999, USA.
3 International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA), University of Rome La Sapienza, I-00185 Roma, Italy.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: brian.m.punsly{at}boeing.com

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Black Hole Accretion.
R. Narayan and E. Quataert (2005)
Science 307, 77-80
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