Zhang, Haocheng (ORCID:0000000198261759)

DOE OSTI2025

High Optical-to-X-Ray Polarization Ratio Reveals Compton Scattering in BL Lacertae’s Jet

Blazars, supermassive black hole systems with highly relativistic jets aligned with the line of sight, are the most powerful long-lived emitters of electromagnetic emission in the Universe. We report here on a radio-to-gamma-ray multiwavelength campaign on the blazar BL Lacertae with unprecedented polarimetric coverage from radio to X-ray wavelengths. The observations caught an extraordinary event on 2023 November 10–18, when the degree of linear polarization of optical synchrotron radiation reached a record value of 47.5%. In stark contrast, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer found that the X-ray (Compton scattering or hadron-induced) emission was polarized at less than 7.4% (3 σ confidence level). We argue here that this observational result rules out a hadronic origin of the high-energy emission and strongly favors a leptonic (Compton scattering) origin, thereby breaking the degeneracy between hadronic and leptonic emission models for BL Lacertae and demonstrating the power of multiwavelength polarimetry to address this question. Furthermore, the multiwavelength flux and polarization variability, featuring an extremely prominent rise and decay of the optical polarization degree, is interpreted for the first time by the relaxation of a magnetic “spring” embedded in the newly injected plasma. This suggests that the plasma jet can maintain a predominant toroidal magnetic field component parsecs away from the central engine.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Jets with a Twist: The Emergence of FR0 Jets in a 3D GRMHD Simulation of Zero-angular-momentum Black Hole Accretion

Abstract Spinning supermassive black holes (BHs) in active galactic nuclei magnetically launch relativistic collimated outflows, or jets. Without angular momentum supply, such jets are thought to perish within 3 orders of magnitude in distance from the BH, well before reaching kiloparsec scales. We study the survival of such jets at the largest scale separation to date, via 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of rapidly spinning BHs immersed into uniform zero-angular-momentum gas threaded by a weak vertical magnetic field. We place the gas outside the BH sphere of influence, or the Bondi radius, chosen to be much larger than the BH gravitational radius, R B = 10 3 R g . The BH develops dynamically important large-scale magnetic fields, forms a magnetically arrested disk (MAD), and launches relativistic jets that propagate well outside R B and suppress BH accretion to 1.5% of the Bondi rate, M ̇ B . Thus, low-angular-momentum accretion in the MAD state can form large-scale jets in Fanaroff–Riley (FR) type I and II galaxies. Subsequently, the disk shrinks and exits the MAD state: barely a disk (BAD), it rapidly precesses, whips the jets around, globally destroys them, and lets 5%–10% of M ̇ B reach the BH. Thereafter, the disk starts rocking back and forth by angles 90°–180°: the rocking accretion disk (RAD) launches weak intermittent jets that spread their energy over a large area and suppress BH accretion to ≲2% M ̇ B . Because the BAD and RAD states tangle up the jets and destroy them well inside R B , they are promising candidates for the more abundant, but less luminous, class of FR0 galaxies.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗