The immediate environment of an astrophysical black hole

Abstract

In view of the upcoming observations with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), we present our thoughts on the immediate environment of an astrophysical black hole. We are concerned that two approximations used in general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations, namely numerical density floors implemented near the base of the black hole jet, and a magnetic field that comes from large distances, may mislead our interpretation of the observations. We predict that three physical processes will manifest themselves in EHT observations, namely dynamic pair formation just above the horizon, electromagnetic energy dissipation along the boundary of the black hole jet, and a region of weak magnetic field separating the black hole jet from the disk wind.