Observations place 3C120’s jet emergence inside a hot plasma flow
PhysicsUnverifiedUpdated:
A research group reports that simultaneous X-ray and radio observations of supermassive black hole 3C120 traced a cool disk changing into a hot plasma flow and located the jet’s emergence inside that flow.
Simultaneous XRISM and radio observations
A group including researchers from Tohoku University, Nagoya City University and Kyoto University simultaneously observed 3C120 with the XRISM X-ray imaging and spectroscopy satellite and an international radio-telescope network. The group reports that the cool disk truncates about 20 black-hole radii away and transitions into a plasma flow at hundreds of millions of degrees, while the jet emerges inside it.
How a heavily accreting supermassive black hole launches a jet was described as a major unresolved question.
The research group reports that 3C120’s cool disk ends about 20 black-hole radii from the black hole, becoming a hot plasma flow, with a jet emerging farther inward.
The spatial relation of disk, plasma flow, and jet
The reported spatial structure directly connects the disk transition, hot plasma flow and jet-emergence region in a highly accreting supermassive black hole.
Sources
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