Can the BZ mechanism power steady jets?

Understand

We consider the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism for extracting black hole spin energy to drive astrophysical jets.

• Analyses of the BZ mechanism generally take no account of any electric charge on the black hole.
• But, as noted by Wald and others, if the medium surrounding the black hole is an ionized plasma with mobile charges, then a spinning hole quickly acquires an electric charge.
• The effect of this charge is to nullify the electric field structures which drive the BZ mechanism.