Black hole jets bent by magnetic fields

Bagchi, Joydeep

doi:10.1038/d41586-021-01171-z

NEWS AND VIEWS
05 May 2021

Black hole jets bent by magnetic fields

The large-scale impact of magnetic fields on galaxy clusters has been unclear. Images from the MeerKAT radio telescope suggest that such fields can bend jets of particles ejected from massive black holes in galaxy clusters.

Joydeep Bagchi ⁰

Joydeep Bagchi
1. Joydeep Bagchi is in the Department of Physics and Electronics, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru 560029, India.
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Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are millions to billions of times heavier than the Sun and lurk in the centres of almost all massive galaxies. In our cosmic neighbourhood, most of these galactic SMBHs are inactive. However, some are extremely active, releasing enormous amounts of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum as matter falls into them under gravity¹^–³. Some spectacular manifestations of active SMBHs are radio galaxies — galaxies that eject two powerful, highly collimated jets of matter that emit radio waves. These radio jets are thought to be launched, focused and shaped by magnetic fields⁴^–⁶, but direct evidence of this process is limited (see go.nature.com/3xvingm). Now, in a paper in Nature, Chibueze et al.⁷ report the observation of an interaction between such radio jets and magnetic fields in a galaxy cluster.

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Nature 593, 40-41 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01171-z

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