Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “BLACK HOLES”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 829 records · Page 46
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2003

The Formation of Relativistic Jets from Kerr Black Holes

We have performed the first fully three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) simulation for Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes with a free falling corona and thin accretion disk. The initial simulation results with a Schwarzschild metric show that a jet is created as in the previous axisymmetric simulations with mirror symmetry at the equator. However, the time to form the jet is slightly longer than in the 2-D axisymmetric simulation. We expect that the dynamics of jet formation are modified due to the additional freedom in the azimuth dimension without axisymmetry with respect to the Z axis and reflection symmetry respect to the equatorial plane. The jet which is initially formed due to the twisted magnetic fields and shocks becomes a wind at the later time. The wind flows out with a much wider angle than the initial jet. The twisted magnetic fields at the earlier time were untwisted and less pinched. The accretion disk became thicker than the initial condition. Further simulations with initial perturbations will provide insights for accretion dynamics with instabilities such as magneto-rotational instability (MRI) and accretion-eject instability (AEI). These instabilities may contribute to variabilities observed in microquasars and AGN jets.

Nishikawa, K.-I.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Construction of Penrose Diagrams for Dynamic Black Holes

A set of Penrose diagrams is constructed in order to examine the large-scale causal structure of black holes with dynamic horizons. Coordinate dependencies of significant features, such as the event horizon and radial mass scale, are demonstrated on the diagrams. Unlike in static Schwarzschild geometries, the radial mass scale is clearly seen to differ from the horizon. Trajectories for photons near the horizon are briefly discussed.

Brown, Beth A.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Gravitational Radiation Characteristics of Nonspinning Black-Hole Binaries

"We present a detailed descriptive analysis of the gravitational radiation from binary mergers of non-spinning black holes, based on numerical relativity simulations of systems varying from equal-mass to a 6:1 mass ratio. Our analysis covers amplitude and phase characteristics of the radiation, suggesting a unified picture of the waveforms' dominant features in terms of an implicit rotating source. applying uniformly to the full wavetrain, from inspiral through ringdown. We construct a model of the late-stage frequency evolution that fits the $\ell = m$ modes, and identify late-time relationships between waveform frequency and amplitude. These relationships allow us to construct a predictive model for the late-time waveforms, an alternative to the common practice of modelling by a sum of quasinormal mode overtones. We demonstrate an application of this in a new effective-one-body-based analytic waveform model."

Kelly, Barnard↗
NASA NTRS2008

Gravitational Radiation Characteristics of Nonspinning Black-Hole Binaries

We present a detailed descriptive analysis of the gravitational radiation from binary mergers of non-spinning black holes, based on numerical relativity simulations of systems varying from equal-mass to a 6:1 mass ratio. Our analysis covers amplitude and phase characteristics of the radiation, suggesting a unified picture of the waveforms' dominant features in terms of an implicit rotating source, applying uniformly to the full wavetrain, from inspiral through ringdown. We construct a model of the late-stage frequency evolution that fits the l = m modes, and identify late-time relationships between waveform frequency and amplitude. These relationships allow us to construct a predictive model for the late-time waveforms, an alternative to the common practice of modelling by a sum of quasinormal mode overtones. We demonstrate an application of this in a new effective-one-body-based analytic waveform model.

Kelly, B. J.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Sub-Eddington Supermassive Black Hole Activity in Fornax Early-type Galaxies

We characterize the incidence and intensity of low-level supermassive black hole activity within the Fornax cluster, through X-ray observations of the nuclei of 29 quiescent early-type galaxies. Using the Chandra X-ray Telescope, we target 17 galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope Fornax Cluster Survey, down to a uniform (3σ) limiting X-ray luminosity threshold of 5 x 10^(38) erg/s, which we combine with deeper, archival observations for an additional 12 galaxies. A nuclear X-ray point source is detected in 11 out of 29 targets. After accounting for the low-mass X-ray binary contamination to the nuclear X-ray signal, the X-ray active fraction is measured at 26.6% ± 9.6%. The results from this analysis are compared to similar investigations targeting quiescent early types in the Virgo cluster, as well as the field. After correcting for the different mass distributions, the measured Fornax active fraction is less than the field fraction, at more than 3σ, confirming that the funneling of gas to the nuclear regions of cluster members is inhibited compared to those galaxies in the field. At the same time, we find no statistically significant difference between Fornax and Virgo galaxies, with only marginal evidence for a lower active fraction in Fornax (1σ); if real, owing to Fornaxʼs higher galaxy number density, this could indicate that galaxy–galaxy interactions are more effective at gas removal than galaxy-gas effects.

Nathan Lee↗
DOE OSTI2020

Microscopic entropy of rotating electrically charged AdS 4 black holes from field theory localization

We employ supersymmetric localization to determine the exact partition function of 3d N = 2 gauge theories on a background given by a round S 2 fibered over a circle and certain complexified background fields. The Coulomb branch localization locus includes monopole configurations, and the partition function reduces to a matrix model. We consider the partition function of the ABJM theory on this background as an explicit case. We verify that the large-N limit of the ABJM theory partition function produces, in the Cardy limit, the entropy function of the dual rotating, electrically charged asymptotically AdS 4 supersymmetric black holes and thus provides a microscopic explanation for the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Scaling similarities and quasinormal modes of D0 black hole solutions

We study the gravity solution dual to the D0 brane quantum mechanics, or BFSS matrix model, in the ’t Hooft limit. The classical physics described by this gravity solution is invariant under a scaling transformation, which changes the action with a specific critical exponent, sometimes called the hyperscaling violating exponent. We present an argument for this critical exponent from the matrix model side, which leads to an explanation for the peculiar temperature dependence of the entropy in this theory, S ∝ T 9/5 . We also present a similar argument for all other Dp-brane geometries. We then compute the black hole quasinormal modes. This involves perturbing the finite temperature geometry. These perturbations can be easily obtained by a mathematical trick where we view the solution as the dimensional reduction of an Ad S2+9/5 × S 8 geometry.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Long-term 3D MHD simulations of black hole accretion discs formed in neutron star mergers

ABSTRACT We examine the long-term evolution of accretion tori around black hole (BH) remnants of compact object mergers involving at least one neutron star, to better understand their contribution to kilonovae and the synthesis of r-process elements. To this end, we modify the unsplit magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) solver in flash 4.5 to work in non-uniform three-dimensional spherical coordinates, enabling more efficient coverage of a large dynamic range in length scales while exploiting symmetries in the system. This modified code is used to perform BH accretion disc simulations that vary the initial magnetic field geometry and disc compactness, utilizing a physical equation of state, a neutrino leakage scheme for emission and absorption, and modelling the BH’s gravity with a pseudo-Newtonian potential. Simulations run for long enough to achieve a radiatively inefficient state in the disc. We find robust mass ejection with both poloidal and toroidal initial field geometries, and suppressed outflow at high disc compactness. With the included physics, we obtain bimodal velocity distributions that trace back to mass ejection by magnetic stresses at early times, and to thermal processes in the radiatively inefficient state at late times. The electron fraction distribution of the disc outflow is broad in all models, and the ejecta geometry follows a characteristic hourglass shape. We test the effect of removing neutrino absorption or nuclear recombination with axisymmetric models, finding ${\sim} 50{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ less mass ejection and more neutron-rich composition without neutrino absorption, and a subdominant contribution from nuclear recombination. Tests of the MHD and neutrino leakage implementations are included.

Fahlman, Steven (ORCID:0000000348759940)↗
DOE OSTI2022

Spectral distortion anisotropy from inflation for primordial black holes

Single-field inflationary models that seek to greatly enhance small-scale power in order to form primordial black holes predict both a squeezed bispectrum that is enhanced by this small-scale power and a potentially detectable enhancement of cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectral distortions. Despite this combination, spectral distortion anisotropy on CMB scales remains small since the squeezed bispectrum represents an unobservable modulation of the scale rather than local amplitude for the short-wavelength acoustic power that dissipates and forms the μ spectral distortion. Furthermore, the leading-order amplitude effect comes from the local modulation of acoustic dissipation at the beginning of the μ epoch at the end of thermalization by a long-wavelength mode that is correlated with CMB anisotropy itself. Compensating factors from the suppression by the square of the ratio the comoving horizon at thermalization to the smallest detectable primary CMB scales (~0.0005) and maximal allowed enhancement of μ (~5000) leaves a signal in the μT cross spectrum that is still well beyond the capabilities of PIXIE or LiteBIRD space missions due to sensitivity and resolution while remaining much larger than in single-field slow-roll inflation and potentially observable.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2011

X-Ray Spectra from MHD Simulations of Accreting Black Holes

We present new global calculations of X-ray spectra from fully relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic (MHO) simulations of black hole (BH) accretion disks. With a self consistent radiative transfer code including Compton scattering and returning radiation, we can reproduce the predominant spectral features seen in decades of X-ray observations of stellar-mass BHs: a broad thermal peak around 1 keV, power-law continuum up to >100 keV, and a relativistically broadened iron fluorescent line. By varying the mass accretion rate, different spectral states naturally emerge: thermal-dominant, steep power-law, and low/hard. In addition to the spectral features, we briefly discuss applications to X-ray timing and polarization.

Schnittman, Jeremy D.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Generating rotating spacetime in Ricci-based gravity: naked singularity as a black hole mimicker

Motivated by the lack of rotating solutions sourced by matter in General Relativity as well as in modified gravity theories, in this work we extend a recently discovered exact rotating solution of the minimal Einstein-scalar theory to its counterpart in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity coupled to a Born-Infeld scalar field. This is accomplished with the implementation of a well-developed mapping between solutions of Ricci-Based Palatini theories of gravity and General Relativity. The new solution is parametrized by the scalar charge and the Born-Infeld coupling constant apart from the mass and spin of the compact object. Compared to the spacetime prior to the mapping, we find that the high-energy modifications at the Born-Infeld scale are able to suppress but not remove the curvature divergence of the original naked null singularity. Depending on the sign of the Born-Infeld coupling constant, these modifications may even give rise to an additional timelike singularity exterior to the null one. In spite of that, both of the naked singularities before and after the mapping are capable of casting shadows, and as a consequence of the mapping relation, their shadows turn out to be identical as seen by a distant observer on the equatorial plane. Even though the scalar field induces a peculiar oblateness to the appearance of the shadow with its left and right endpoints held fixed, the closedness condition for the shadow contour sets a small upper bound on the absolute value of the scalar charge, which leads to observational features of the shadow closely resembling those of a Kerr black hole.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Suspended and Restored Activities of a Nearby Supermassive Black Hole

The discovery of spectral type transition of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), the so-called “changing-look” (CL) phenomenon, challenges the widely accepted AGN paradigm, not only in the orientation-based unified model, but also in the standard disk model. In past decades, only a couple of nearby repeat changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) have been identified. Here we report spectroscopic observations of UGC 3223 over the course of 18 yr, from 2001 onwards. Combining the spectrum taken in 1987 by Stirpe, we have witnessed its type transitions from 1.5→2.0→1.8 over 32 yr, and captured a long-lived (at least 10 yr) thorough “turn-off” state with a spectrum typical of a Seyfert 2 galaxy. The long-term thorough turn-off state probably suggests a once-dormant and an awakening central engine in UGC 3223. We argue that the (dis)appearance of the broad Balmer emission lines can be explained by the disk–wind broad-line region model given the evolution of the calculated Eddington ratio of accretion of the supermassive black hole.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1992

Populations of low-mass black hole binaries

The evolution of a population of massive binaries with low-mass secondaries is considered by contrasting the fate of black hole-producing systems with those leaving neutron stars. It is found that the interacting black hole binaries may be even more common than the familiar neutron star LMXBs. Certain unusual expected systems are described, and a comparison with present observations is made to determine the accuracy of predictions of this scenario.

Romani, Roger W.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Constraints on MeV dark matter and primordial black holes: Inverse Compton signals at the SKA

Here we investigate the possibilities for probing MeV dark matter (DM) particles and primordial black holes (PBHs) (for masses ~ 10 15 –10 17 g) at the upcoming radio telescope SKA, using photon signals from the Inverse Compton (IC) effect within a galactic halo. Pair-annihilation or decay of MeV DM particles (into e + e - pairs) or Hawking radiation from a population of PBHs generates mildly relativistic e ± which can lead to radio signals through the IC scattering on low energy cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. We study the ability of SKA to detect such signals coming from nearby ultra-faint dwarf galaxies Segue I and Ursa Major II as well as the globular cluster ω-cen and the Coma cluster. We find that with ~ 100 hours of observation, the SKA improves the Planck constraints on the DM annihilation/decay rate and the PBH abundance for masses in the range ~ 1 to few tens of MeV and above 10 15 to 10 17 g, respectively. Importantly, the SKA limits are independent of the assumed magnetic fields within the galaxies. Previously allowed regions of diffusion parameters of MeV electrons inside a dwarf galaxy that give rise to observable signals at the SKA are also excluded. For objects like dwarf galaxies, predicted SKA constraints depend on both the DM and diffusion parameters. Independent observations in different frequency bands, e.g., radio and γ-ray frequencies, may break this degeneracy and thus enable one to constrain the combined parameter space of DM and diffusion. However, the constraints are independent of diffusion parameters for galaxy clusters such as Coma.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Warm Hawking relics from primordial black hole domination

We study the cosmological impact of warm, dark-sector relic particles produced as Hawkingradiation in a primordial-black-hole-dominated universe before big bang nucleosynthesis. If thesedark-sector particles are stable, they would survive to the present day as Hawking relicsand modify the growth of cosmological structure. We show that such relics are producedwith much larger momenta, but in smaller quantities than the familiar thermal relics considered instandard cosmology. Consequently, Hawking relics with keV–MeV masses affect the growth oflarge-scale structure in a similar way to eV-scale thermal relics like massive neutrinos. Wemodel their production and evolution, and show that their momentum distributions are broader thancomparable relics with thermal distributions. Warm Hawking relics affect the growth ofcosmological perturbations and we constrain their abundance to be less than 2% of the darkmatter over a broad range of their viable parameter space. Finally, we examine how futuremeasurements of the matter power spectrum can distinguish Hawking relics from thermal particles.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Galaxy mergers in eagle do not induce a significant amount of black hole growth yet do increase the rate of luminous AGN

ABSTRACT We investigate the connection between galaxy–galaxy mergers and enhanced black hole (BH) growth using the cosmological hydrodynamical eagle simulation. We do this via three methods of analysis, investigating: the merger fraction of AGN, the AGN fraction of merging systems, and the AGN fraction of galaxies with close companions. In each case, we find an increased abundance of AGN within merging systems relative to control samples of inactive or isolated galaxies (by up to a factor of ≈3 depending on the analysis method used), confirming that mergers are enhancing BH accretion rates for at least a subset of the galaxy population. The greatest excess of AGN triggered via a merger are found in lower mass (M* ∼ 1010 M⊙) gas rich (fgas > 0.2) central galaxies with lower mass BHs (MBH ∼ 107 M⊙) at lower redshifts (z < 1). We find no enhancement of AGN triggered via mergers in more massive galaxies (M* ≳ 1011 M⊙). The enhancement of AGN is not uniform throughout the phases of a merger, and instead peaks within the early remnants of merging systems (typically lagging ≈300 Myr post-coalescence of the two galaxies at z = 0.5). We argue that neither major ($M_{\mathrm{*,1}} / M_{\mathrm{*,2}} \ge \frac{1}{4}$) nor minor mergers ($\frac{1}{10} \lt M_{\mathrm{*,1}} / M_{\mathrm{*,2}} \lt \frac{1}{4}$) are statistically relevant for enhancing BH masses globally. Whilst at all redshifts the galaxies experiencing a merger have accretion rates that are on average 2–3 times that of isolated galaxies, the majority of mass that is accreted on to BHs occurs outside the periods of a merger. We compute that on average no more than 15 per cent of a BHs final day mass comes from the enhanced accretion rates triggered via a merger.

McAlpine, Stuart↗
DOE OSTI2025

Black Hole Supernovae, Their Equation of State Dependence, and Ejecta Composition

Abstract Recent literature on core-collapse supernovae suggests that a black hole (BH) can form within ∼1 s of shock revival, while still culminating in a successful supernova. We refer to these as BH supernovae, as they are distinct from other BH formation channels in both timescale and impact on the explosion. We simulate these events self-consistently from core collapse until 20–50 days after collapse using three axisymmetric models of a 60 M ⊙ zero-age main-sequence progenitor star and investigate how the composition of the ejecta is impacted by the BH formation. We employ Skyrme-type equations of state (EOSs) and vary the uncertain nucleonic effective mass, which affects the pressure inside the proto–neutron star through the thermal part of the EOS. This results in different BH formation times and explosion energies at BH formation, yielding final explosion energies between 0.06 and 0.72 × 10 51 erg with 21.8–23.3 M ⊙ of ejecta, of which 0–0.018 M ⊙ is 56 Ni. Compared to expectations from 1D simulations, we find more nuanced EOS dependences of the explosion dynamics, the mass of the BH remnant, and the elemental composition of the ejecta. We investigate why the explosions survive despite the massive overburden and link the shape of the diagnostic energy curve and character of the ejecta evolution to the progenitor structure.

Eggenberger Andersen, Oliver (ORCID:00000002966079↗
NASA NTRS1991

Structure of thermal pair clouds around gamma-ray-emitting black holes

Using certain simplifying assumptions, the general structure of a quasi-spherical thermal pair-balanced cloud surrounding an accreting black hole is derived from first principles. Pair-dominated hot solutions exist only for a restricted range of the viscosity parameter. These results are applied as examples to the 1979 HEAO 3 gamma-ray data of Cygnus X-1 and the Galactic center. Values are obtained for the viscosity parameter lying in the range of about 0.1-0.01. Since the lack of synchrotron soft photons requires the magnetic field to be typically less than 1 percent of the equipartition value, a magnetic field cannot be the main contributor to the viscous stress of the inner accretion flow, at least during the high gamma-ray states.

Liang, Edison P.↗