Hydromagnetics of advective accretion flows around black holes: Removal of angular momentum by large scale magnetic stresses

We show that the removal of angular momentum is possible in the presence of large scale magnetic stresses in geometrically thick, advective, sub-Keplerian accretion flows around black holes in steady-state, in the complete absence of alpha-viscosity. The efficiency of such an angular momentum transfer could be equivalent to that of alpha-viscosity with alpha=0.01-0.08. Nevertheless, required field is well below its equipartition value, leading to a magnetically stable disk flow. This is essentially important in order to describe the hard spectral state of the sources, when the flow is non/sub-Keplerian. We show in our simpler 1.5-dimensional, vertically averaged disk model that larger the vertical-gradient of azimuthal component of magnetic field, stronger the rate of angular momentum transfer is, which in turn may lead to a faster rate of outflowing matter. Finding efficient angular momentum transfer, in black hole disks, via magnetic stresses alone is very interesting, when the generic origin of alpha-viscosity is still being explored.Comment: 14 pages including 8 figures; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Accelerating AGN jets to parsec scales using general relativistic MHD simulations

Accreting black holes produce collimated outflows, or jets, that traverse many orders of magnitude in distance, accelerate to relativistic velocities, and collimate into tight opening angles. Of these, perhaps the least understood is jet collimation due to the interaction with the ambient medium. In order to investigate this interaction, we carried out axisymmetric general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of jets produced by a large accretion disc, spanning over 5 orders of magnitude in time and distance, at an unprecedented resolution. Supported by such a disc, the jet attains a parabolic shape, similar to the M87 galaxy jet, and the product of the Lorentz factor and the jet half-opening angle, $\gamma\theta\ll 1$, similar to values found from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets; this suggests extended discs in AGN. We find that the interaction between the jet and the ambient medium leads to the development of pinch instabilities, which produce significant radial and lateral variability across the jet by converting magnetic and kinetic energy into heat. Thus pinched regions in the jet can be detectable as radiating hotspots and may provide an ideal site for particle acceleration. Pinching also causes gas from the ambient medium to become squeezed between magnetic field lines in the jet, leading to enhanced mass-loading of the jet and potentially contributing to the spine-sheath structure observed in AGN outflows.Comment: 18 pages, 24 figures, submitted to MNRAS, revised version. See our Youtube channel for accompanying animations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjldVlE2vDFzHMGn75tgc2Lod0kcTWZd

Extension of topological groupoids and Serre, Hurewicz morphisms

In this paper, we introduce the notion of a topological groupoid extension and relate it to the already existing notion of a gerbe over a topological stack. We further study the properties of a gerbe over a Serre, Hurewicz stack

Chern-Weil theory for principal bundles over Lie groupoids and differentiable stacks

Let $\mathbb{X}=[X_1\rightrightarrows X_0]$ be a Lie groupoid equipped with a connection, given by a smooth distribution $\mathcal{H} \subset T X_1$ transversal to the fibers of the source map. Under the assumption that the distribution $\mathcal{H}$ is integrable, we define a version of de Rham cohomology for the pair $(\mathbb{X}, \mathcal{H})$, and we study connections on principal $G$-bundles over $(\mathbb{X}, \mathcal{H})$ in terms of the associated Atiyah sequence of vector bundles. We also discuss associated constructions for differentiable stacks. Finally, we develop the corresponding Chern-Weil theory and describe characteristic classes of principal $G$-bundles over a pair $(\mathbb{X}, \mathcal{H})$.Comment: comments are welcom

Energy Extraction from Spinning Stringy Black Holes

We perform the first numerical simulations modeling the inflow and outflow of magnetized plasma in the Kerr-Sen spacetime, which describes classical spinning black holes (BHs) in string theory. We find that the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism, which is believed to power astrophysical relativistic outflows or ``jets'', is valid even for BHs in an alternate theory of gravity, including near the extremal limit. The BZ mechanism releases outward Poynting-flux-dominated plasma as frame-dragging forces magnetic field lines to twist. However, for nonspinning BHs, where the frame-dragging is absent, we find an alternate powering mechanism through the release of gravitational potential energy during accretion. Outflows from non-spinning stringy BHs can be approximately $250\%$ more powerful as compared to Schwarzschild BHs, due to their relatively smaller event horizon sizes and, thus, higher curvatures. Finally, by constructing the first synthetic images of near-extremal non-Kerr BHs from time-dependent simulations, we find that these can be ruled out by horizon-scale interferometric images of accreting supermassive BHs.Comment: To be submitted to journal. Comments are welcom

Atiyah sequences and connections on principal bundles over differentiable stacks

We construct and study general connections on Lie groupoids and differentiable stacks as well as on principal bundles over them using Atiyah sequences associated to transversal tangential distributions.Comment: comments are welcom