Pair Production in Low Luminosity Galactic Nuclei

Understand

Electron-positron pairs may be produced near accreting black holes by a variety of physical processes, and the resulting pair plasma may be accelerated and collimated into a relativistic jet.

• Here we use a self-consistent dynamical and radiative model to investigate pair production by \gamma\gamma collisions in weakly radiative accretion flows around a black hole of mass M and accretion rate \dot{M}.
• Our flow model is drawn from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations, and our radiation field is computed by a Monte Carlo transport scheme assuming the electron distribution function is thermal.
• We argue that the pair production rate scales as r^{-6} M^{-1} \dot{M}^{6}.