Jump-starting relativistic flows, and the M87 jet

Abstract

We point out the dominant importance of plasma injection effects for relativistic winds from pulsars and black holes. We demonstrate that outside the light cylinder the magnetically dominated outflows while sliding along the helical magnetic field move in fact nearly radially with very large Lorentz factors $\gamma_0 \gg 1 $, imprinted into the flow during pair production within the gaps. Only at larger distances, $r \geq \gamma_0 (c/\Omega)$, the MHD acceleration $\Gamma \propto r$ takes over. As a result, Blandford-Znajek (BZ) driven outflows would produce spine-brightened images. The best-resolved case of the jet in M87 shows both bright edge-brightened features, as well as weaker spine-brightened feature. Only the spine-brightened component can be BZ-driven/originate from the BH's magnetosphere.