How to Turn Jets into Cylinders near Supermassive Black Holes in 3D General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations

Abstract

Accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) produce highly magnetized relativistic jets that tend to collimate gradually as they propagate outward. However, recent radio interferometric observations of the 3C 84 galaxy reveal a stunning, cylindrical jet already at several hundred SMBH gravitational radii, r ≳ 350 r _g . We explore how such extreme collimation emerges via a suite of 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. We consider an SMBH surrounded by a magnetized torus immersed in a constant-density ambient medium that starts at the edge of the SMBH sphere of influence, chosen to be much larger than the SMBH gravitational radius, r _B = 10 ^3 r _g . We find that radiatively inefficient accretion flows (e.g., M87) produce winds that collimate the jets into parabolas near the black hole. After the disk winds stop collimating the jets at r ≲ r _B , they turn conical. Once outside r _B , the jets run into the ambient medium and form backflows that collimate the jets into cylinders some distance beyond r _B . Interestingly, for radiatively efficient accretion, as in 3C 84, the radiative cooling saps the energy out of the disk winds; at early times, they cannot efficiently collimate the jets, which skip the initial parabolic collimation stage, start out conical near the SMBH, and turn into cylinders already at r ≃ 300 r _g , as observed in 3C 84. Over time, the jet power remains approximately constant, whereas the mass accretion rate increases; the winds grow in strength and start to collimate the jets, which become quasi-parabolic near the base, and the transition point to a nearly cylindrical jet profile moves outward while remaining inside r _B .

Keywords

• High energy astrophysics
• Active galactic nuclei
• Black holes
• Jets
• Magnetohydrodynamical simulations
• General relativity