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Title: Bridging the Bondi and Event Horizon Scales: 3D GRMHD Simulations Reveal X-shaped Radio Galaxy Morphology
Abstract X-shaped radio galaxies (XRGs) produce misaligned X-shaped jet pairs and make up ≲10% of radio galaxies. XRGs are thought to emerge in galaxies featuring a binary supermassive black hole (SMBH), SMBH merger, or large-scale ambient medium asymmetry. We demonstrate that XRG morphology can naturally form without such special, preexisting conditions. Our 3D general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulation for the first time follows magnetized rotating gas from outside the SMBH sphere of influence of radius R B to the SMBH of gravitational radius R g at the largest scale separation, R B / R g = 10 3 , to date. Initially, our axisymmetric system of constant-density hot gas contains a weak vertical magnetic field and rotates in the equatorial plane of a rapidly spinning SMBH. We seed the gas with small-scale 2% level pressure perturbations. Infalling gas forms an accretion disk, and the SMBH launches relativistically magnetized collimated jets reaching well outside R B . Under the pressure of the infalling gas, the jets intermittently turn on and off, erratically wobble, and inflate pairs of cavities in different directions, resembling an X-shaped jet morphology. Synthetic X-ray images reveal multiple pairs of jet-powered shocks and cavities. Large-scale magnetic flux accumulates on the SMBH, becomes dynamically important, and leads to a magnetically arrested disk state. The SMBH accretes at 2% of the Bondi rate ( M ̇ ≃ 2.4 × 10 − 3 M ⊙ yr − 1 for M87*) and launches twin jets at η = 150% efficiency. These jets are powerful enough ( P jets ≃ 2 × 10 44 erg s −1 ) to escape along the SMBH spin axis and end the short-lived intermittent jet state, whose transient nature can account for the rarity of XRGs.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2031997 1911080
NSF-PAR ID:
10353405
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume:
936
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2041-8205
Page Range / eLocation ID:
L5
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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