Astronomers observe black hole jets rotating in lockstep with accretion disk

Black holes are surrounded by a flat, swirling cloud of infalling gas and dust, known as accretion disks. The swirling matter and the spinning black hole create twisted magnetic fields, that results in the formation of polar jets, where superheated gas are funneled away from the black hole at speeds approaching that of light. It has long been predicted through theory and simulations that the disk and jet rotate in tandem. This co-precession of the disk and jets has never been directly observed however, as such observations have proven to be challenging. 

Now, astronomers have directly observed the co-precession of the disk and jets of a black hole, that is likely to arise from the Lense-Thirring effect, in which a rapidly rotating black hole drags the surrounding spacetime, resulting in a tilted accretion disk, with perpendicular jets. The observations were possible because of a distant star wandering too close to a supermassive black hole occupying the core of the LEDA 145386 galaxy, resulting in a tidal disruption event designated as TDE AT2020afhd. The star is violently shredded by the catastrophe, and the material gets absorbed into the accretion disk. 

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The TDE was initially spotted by an optical sky survey. 215 days after the initial discovery, the X-ray emissions started showing striking quasi-periodic oscillations, with the radio emissions being in synch with the X-ray emissions. The team was able to construct a co-precission model of the disk and jet that reproduced the variability of both the X-rays and the radio emissions. A paper describing the research has been published in Science Advances. Co-corresponding author of the paper Huang Yang says, "This is the first time that disk-jet co-precession has been clearly observed in a black hole system, which is truly exciting."