New Energy Source Controlled by Gravity Alone?

In this paper, I present a theoretical and numerical (Monte Carlo) N-particle fully relativistic 4-D analysis of Penrose scattering processes (Compton and γγ −→ ee) in the ergosphere of a supermassive Kerr (rotating) black hole. These general relativistic model calculations surprisingly reveal that the observed high energies and luminosities of quasars and other active galactic nuclei, the collimated jets about the polar axis, and the asymmetrical jets (which can be enhanced by relativistic Doppler beaming effects) all are inherent properties of rotating black holes. From this analysis, it is shown that the Penrose scattered escaping relativistic particles exhibit tightly wound coil-like cone distributions (highly collimated vortical jet distributions) about the polar axis, with helical polar angles of escape varying from 0.5 to 30 for the highest energy particles. It is also shown that the gravitomagnetic (GM) field, which causes the dragging of inertial frames, exerts a force acting on the momentum vectors of the incident and scattered particles, causing the particle emission to be asymmetrical above and below the equatorial plane, thus appearing to break the equatorial reflection symmetry of the Kerr metric. When the accretion disk is assumed to be a two-temperature bistable thin disk/ion corona (or torus ≡ advection-dominated accretion flow), energies as high as 54 GeV can be attained by these Penrose processes alone; and when relativistic beaming is included, energies in the TeV range can be achieved, agreeing with observations of some BL Lac objects. When this model is applied specifically to quasars 3C 279 and 3C 273, and the Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG—60-30-15, their observed high energy luminosity spectra can be duplicated and explained. This energy-momentum extraction model can be applied to any size black hole, irrespective of the mass, and therefore applies to microquasars as well. When applied to the classical galactic black hole source Cygnus X-1, the results are consistent with observations. The consistency of these Penrose model calculations with observations suggests that the external magnetic field of the accretion disk plays a negligible role in the extraction of energy-momentum from a rotating black hole, inside the ergosphere, close to the event horizon, where gravitational forces, and thus the dynamics of the black hole, appear to be dominant, as would be expected. Subject headings: acceleration of particles—black hole physics—galaxies: jets—quasars: general— gravitation—relativity