Pair Plasma Production in a Black Hole Magnetosphere

Abstract

The model of a stationary, plasma-filled magnetosphere around a rotating black hole has been evoked to explain the energies liberated in the vicinity of a black hole, which possibly form relativistic jets observed in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) (Blandford 1976, 1977; Loveloce 1996). Very close to the black hole, the jet energy will be regarded predominantly electromagnetic, because pair annihilation suppresses the density of material. The source of the electromagnetic power eventually resulting in the γ-ray jet may be the spin of the central black hole (Blandford and Znajek 1976).