Revealing the driving mechanism of black hole jets through polarization and general relativistic electromagnetism

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H05437
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Astronomy
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Toma Kenji 東北大学, 学際科学フロンティア研究所, 助教 (70729011)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: ブラックホール / 相対論的ジェット / 偏光 / 一般相対性理論 / 活動銀河核 / ガンマ線バースト

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Black holes are widely thought to absorb all ambient materials, but in reality, a fraction of them can obtain high energies and escape. Most remarkable one of such phenomena is plasma jet with speed close to light speed from the vicinity of black holes. This project research has utilized general relativistic electromagnetism and succeeded in understanding the detailed physics on how the black hole rotational energy is converted to electromagnetic energy flux of jet. This project research has also confirmed that the emission mechanism of jets can be strongly constrained through polarization of gamma-ray bursts. Furthermore, this project has achieved extra things such as proposition of a new method to examine the jet driving mechanism with radio observations and theoretical interpretation of the first polarimetric observation of a gravitational wave emitter.

Free Research Field

高エネルギー天体物理学