Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Penrose Pair Production As A Power Source Of Quasars And Active Galactic Nuclei, Menas Kafatos, D. Leiter

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper we propose a new mechanism, Penrose pair production in massive, canonical (with a/M = 0.998) Kerr black holes, as a power source in quasars, Seyfert galaxies, radio galaxies, and BL Lac objects (i.e., what one usually refers to as active nuclei). As a working hypothesis, we postulate that massive (10^8 M0 or around this value) Kerr black holes reside in the centers of these objects. We also postulate that an accretion disk is formed. In a variety of models, hot, inner disks are expected. If the temperature is sufficiently high-as, for example, in the two-temperature model-then MeV …