Transition from regular to chaotic motion in black hole magnetospheres

Cosmic black holes can act as agents of particle acceleration. We study properties of a system consisting of a rotating black hole immersed in a large-scale organized magnetic field. Electrically charged particles in the immediate neighborhood of the horizon are influenced by strong gravity acting together with magnetic and induced electric components. We relax several constraints which were often imposed in previous works: the magnetic field does not have to share a common symmetry axis with the spin of the black hole but they can be inclined with respect to each other, thus violating the axial symmetry. Also, the black hole does not have to remain at rest but it can instead perform fast translational motion together with rotation. We demonstrate that the generalization brings new effects. Starting from uniform electro-vacuum fields in the curved spacetime, we find separatrices and identify magnetic neutral points forming in certain circumstances. We suggest that these structures can represent signatures of magnetic reconnection triggered by frame-dragging effects in the ergosphere. We further investigate the motion of charged particles in these black hole magnetospheres. We concentrate on the transition from the regular motion to chaos, and in this context we explore the characteristics of chaos in relativity. For the first time, we apply recurrence plots as a suitable technique to quantify the degree of chaoticness near a black hole.Comment: PhD Thesis, 123 page

Near-horizon structure of escape zones of electrically charged particles around weakly magnetized rotating black hole. II. Acceleration and escape in the oblique magnetosphere

Strong gravity and magnetic fields are key ingredients that power processes of accretion and ejection near compact objects. While the particular mechanisms that operate here are still discussed, it seems that the presence of an ordered magnetic field is crucial for the acceleration and collimation of relativistic jets of electrically charged particles on superhorizon length scales. In this context, we further study the effect of a large-scale magnetic field on the dynamics of charged particles near a rotating black hole. We consider a scenario in which the initially neutral particles on regular geodesic orbits in the equatorial plane are destabilized by a charging process (e.g., by photoionization). Some charged particles are accelerated out of the equatorial plane, and they follow jetlike trajectories with relativistic velocities. In our previous paper, we investigated this scenario for the case of perfect alignment of the magnetic field with the axis of rotation; i.e., the system was considered axisymmetric. Here we relax this assumption and investigate nonaxisymmetric systems in which the magnetic field is arbitrarily inclined with respect to the black hole spin. We study the system numerically in order to locate the zones of escaping trajectories and compute the maximum (terminal) escape velocity. It appears that breaking the axial symmetry (even by small inclination angles) substantially increases the fraction of escaping orbits and allows the acceleration to ultrarelativistic velocities that were excluded in the axisymmetric setup. The presence of transient chaotic dynamics in the launching region of the relativistic outflow is confirmed with chaotic indicators.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures; accepted for publication in ApJ; revised version with typographical and language correction

OBLIQUE MAGNETIC FIELDS AND THE ROLE OF FRAME DRAGGING NEAR ROTATING BLACK HOLE

Magnetic null points can develop near the ergosphere boundary of a rotating black hole by the combined effects of strong gravitational field and the frame-dragging mechanism. The induced electric component does not vanish in the magnetic null and an efficient process of particle acceleration can occur in its immediate vicinity. Furthermore, the effect of imposed (weak) magnetic field can trigger an onset of chaos in the motion of electrically charged particles. The model set-up appears to be relevant for low-accretion-rate nuclei of some galaxies which exhibit episodic accretion events (such as the Milky Way's supermassive black hole) embedded in a large-scale magnetic field of external origin with respect to the central black hole. In this contribution we summarise recent results and we give an outlook for future work with the focus on the role of gravito-magnetic effects caused by rotation of the black hole