Energy Extraction from Black Holes

Abstract

In this lecture I give an introduction to the rotational energy extraction of black holes by the electromagnetic Blandford-Znajek process and the generation of relativistic jets. After some basic material on the electrodynamics of black hole magnetospheres, we derive the most important results of Blandford and Znajek by making use of Kerr-Schild coordinates, which are regular on the horizon. In a final part we briefly describe results of recent numerical simulations of accretion flows on rotating black holes, the resulting large-scale outflows, and the formation of collimated relativistic jets with high Lorentz factors.