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H-AMR FORGE'd in FIRE I: Magnetic state transitions, jet launching and radiative emission in super-Eddington, highly magnetized quasar disks formed from cosmological initial conditions

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arxiv 2410.01877 v4 pith:DWA2XYJV submitted 2024-10-02 astro-ph.HE

classification astro-ph.HE
keywords magneticaccretiondiskquasarenergymassradiationvertical
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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abstract

Quasars are powered by supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion disks, yet standard disk models are inconsistent with many quasar observations. Recently, Hopkins et al. (2024) simulated the formation of a quasar disk feeding a SMBH of mass $M=1.3\times10^7\,M_\odot$ in a host galaxy that evolved from cosmological initial conditions. The disk had surprisingly strong toroidal magnetic fields that supported it vertically from gravity and powered fast accretion. What radiation and feedback can such a system produce? To answer this, we must follow the gas to the event horizon. For this, we interpolated the accretion system onto the grid of the general-relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamics code H-AMR and performed 3D simulations with BH spins $a=0$ and $a=0.9375$. This remapping generates spurious magnetic monopoles, which we erase using a novel divergence cleaning approach. Despite the toroidal magnetic field's dominance at large radii, vertical magnetic flux builds up at the event horizon. This causes a magnetic state transition within the inner $200$ gravitational radii of the disk, where net vertical magnetic flux begins dominating the accretion flow. This powers strong winds and, if the BH spins, relativistic jets that can spin-down the BH within $5-10\,{\rm Myrs}$. Sometimes, vertical magnetic fields of opposite sign reach the BH, causing polarity inversion events that briefly destroy the jets and, possibly, the X-ray corona. The disk powers accretion at rates $5\times$ the Eddington limit, which can double the BH mass in $5-10\,{\rm Myrs}$. When $a=0.9375$ ($a=0$), the energy in outflows and radiation equals about $60\%$ ($10\%$) and $100\%$ ($3\%$) of the accreted rest mass energy, respectively. Much of the light escapes in cool, extended $\gtrsim1300\,{\rm au}$ photospheres, consistent with quasar microlensing and the ``big blue bump'' seen in spectral energy distributions.

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Cited by 2 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Zooming In On The Multi-Phase Structure of Magnetically-Dominated Quasar Disks: Radiation From Torus to ISCO Across Accretion Rates

    astro-ph.GA 2025-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A magnetically dominated quasar disk persists from galaxy scales down to about three gravitational radii, with radiation pressure saturating at magnetic levels and the inner disk becoming radiatively inefficient at su...

  2. HST Observations within the Sphere of Influence of the Powerful Supermassive Black Hole in PKS0745-191

    astro-ph.GA 2025-01 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Ionized gas within roughly 600 pc of the supermassive black hole in PKS 0745-191 is chaotic and non-rotating, with a sharp central velocity dispersion that suggests a black hole of about 1.5e10 solar masses.

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