At the center of the massive galaxy M87 lies the supermassive black hole M87*, weighing six and a half billion times the mass of the Sun and spinning rapidly on its axis. From this powerhouse, an enormous jet of charged particles blasts outward at nearly the speed of light, extending over 5,000 light-years and reshaping its galactic environment.
To understand how such jets are powered, ast by Robert Schreiber
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 07, 2025
At the center of the massive galaxy M87 lies the supermassive black hole M87*, weighing six and a half billion times the mass of the Sun and spinning rapidly on its axis. From this powerhouse, an enormous jet of charged particles blasts outward at nearly the speed of light, extending over 5,000 light-years and reshaping its galactic environment.
To understand how such jets are powered, astrophysicists at Goethe University Frankfurt have developed an advanced numerical model called the Frankfurt particle-in-cell code for black hole spacetimes (FPIC). Led by Prof. Luciano Rezzolla, the team used this code to simulate how black holes convert rotational energy into high-energy outflows. Their findings reveal that magnetic reconnection - a process where magnetic field lines snap and reconnect, releasing vast amounts of energy - plays a critical role alongside the well-established Blandford-Znajek mechanism.
"Simulating such processes is crucial for understanding the complex dynamics of relativistic plasmas in curved spacetimes near compact objects, which are governed by the interplay of extreme gravitational and magnetic fields," explained Dr. Claudio Meringolo, the FPIC code's principal developer.
The researchers employed Frankfurt's "Goethe" and Stuttgart's "Hawk" supercomputers, consuming millions of CPU hours to solve the coupled equations of motion and electromagnetism under Einstein's general relativity. Their simulations uncovered intense reconnection activity near the black hole's equator, forming a chain of high-speed plasmoids - dense plasma bubbles traveling at nearly light speed. These events also generated particles with negative energy that help power the relativistic jets.
"Our results open up the fascinating possibility that the Blandford-Znajek mechanism is not the only astrophysical process capable of extracting rotational energy from a black hole," said Dr. Filippo Camilloni, a member of the FPIC team.
"With our work, we can demonstrate how energy is efficiently extracted from rotating black holes and channeled into jets," added Rezzolla. "This helps explain the extreme luminosities of active galactic nuclei and the acceleration of particles to nearly the speed of light." He emphasized the thrill of using advanced simulations to probe black hole physics and of verifying those results with rigorous mathematics.
Research Report:Electromagnetic Energy Extraction from Kerr Black Holes: Ab-Initio Calculations
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