Magnetosphere of a spinning black hole and the role of the current sheet

Understand

We revisit the problem of a spinning black hole immersed in a uniformly magnetized plasma within the context of force-free electrodynamics.

• Such configurations have been found to relax to stationary jetlike solutions that are powered by the rotational energy of the black hole.
• We write down an analytic description for the jet solutions in the low black hole spin limit, and demonstrate that it provides a good approximation to the configurations found dynamically.
• For characterizing the magnetospheres of rapidly spinning black holes, we find that the current sheet which forms in the black hole ergosphere plays an essential role.