Mario Livio
Publications

Black holes and jets in the publication record

47 entries1979 – 2004 34 refereed

A collimated jet is one of the harder things in astrophysics to account for. Something has to take material from a disk and throw a fraction of it out along the rotation axis, keep it narrow over distances vastly larger than the object that launched it, and in some cases push it to a substantial fraction of the speed of light. The difficulty is not that no mechanism exists but that the same phenomenon appears around protostars, around white dwarfs, around neutron stars and around black holes spanning ten orders of magnitude in mass.

The entries in this group take that scale-invariance as the central clue and not a coincidence. If jets appear wherever there is a disk and a rotating central object, then the launching mechanism probably belongs to the disk and the field, not to the specific nature of the object — and a 2004 entry titled simply "Astrophysical Jets" is the summary statement of that position.

What the papers address

The first line of work is what happens at the surface. A 1979 paper on X-ray intensities from a stellar wind flowing past a compact object, and a 1980 paper on thermal limit-cycle oscillations on the surface of accreting neutron stars, are both about the boundary where accreted matter actually lands. The oscillation paper is about X-ray bursters, where the arriving fuel ignites episodically instead of steadily, and the cycle time is set by how fast it accumulates.

The second is variability as a diagnostic. A 1984 paper on quasi-periodic variations in magnetic accreting compact objects treats the near-periodicity of the light curve as information about the geometry — a beat between the spin of the object and the rotation of the inner disk. Twenty years later, variability in black hole accretion disks is the same argument applied to a system with no surface at all.

The third is angular momentum and energy extraction. A 1986 paper on adiabatic accretion of rotating matter onto a black hole works on what the hole does with what it swallows; other entries address whether rotational energy can be taken out of a black hole and not only added to it, which is the theoretical basis for jets being powered by the hole itself and not only by the disk.

The fourth is dynamical, not hydrodynamic: a 2004 paper on the orbital capture of stars by a massive black hole via exchanges with compact remnants is about how a black hole at the centre of a dense stellar system acquires close-orbiting stars at all, given that a direct capture is unlikely.

How the group changes over time

The mass scale climbs. The early entries are about compact objects in binaries — neutron stars and white dwarfs, objects with surfaces. By the 2000s the papers are about massive black holes in galactic centres, where there is no surface and the observable is the disk and the jet. A search for collimated jets in cataclysmic variables, from 2004, deliberately runs the argument in the other direction: if jets are a disk phenomenon and not a black hole phenomenon, they should also appear around accreting white dwarfs, and the paper goes looking.

That inversion is the clearest statement of the scale-invariance thesis in the record. It also puts this group and the accretion-disk group on the same footing, which is why a number of entries are classified in both.

The 47 entries listed below are the subset of the 325-entry index that this site classifies under black holes and jets, dated 1979 to 2004. Jets and black holes are kept together here because the papers do: a title about collimation is usually a title about what sits at the base of the jet. Entries naming only the disk are listed under accretion disks instead, so a few papers appear in both lists.

Two narrow layered paper cones opening upward and downward from a small dark disc encircled by a flat elliptical ring

The 47 entries

  1. Hillwig, T., Livio, M., & Honeycutt, R. K., “A Search for Collimated Jets in Cataclysmic Variables,” PASP, 116, 397 (2004).
  2. Livio, M., “Astrophysical Jets,” BaltA, 13, 273, (2004).
  3. Alexander, T. & Livio, M., “Orbital Capture of Stars by a Massive Black Hole via Exchanges with Compact Remnants,” ApJ, 606, L21 (2004).
  4. King, A. R., Pringle, J. E., West, R. G., & Livio, M., “Variability in Black Hole Accretion Disks,” MNRAS, 348, 111 (2004).
  5. Hujeirat, A., Livio, M., Camenzind, M., & Burkert, A., “A Model for the Disk-Jet Connection in Black Hole Accreting Systems,” A&A, 408, 415 (2003).
  6. Livio, M., Pringle, J. E., & King, A. R., “The Disk-Jet Connection in Microquasars and AGN,” ApJ, 593, 184 (2003).
  7. Biretta, J. A., Junor, W., & Livio, M., “Evidence for Initial Jet Formation by an Accretion Disk in the Radio Galaxy M87,” New Astron. Rev., 46, 239 (2002).
  8. Hujeirat, A., Camenzind, M., Livio, M., “Ion-Dominated Plasma and the Origin of Jets in Quasars,” A&A, 394, L9 (2002).
  9. Sahai, R., Brillant, S., Livio, M., Grebel, E. K., Brandner, W., Tingay, L. A., “Proper Motions in the Knotty, Bipolar Jet in Hen 2-90,” ApJ, 573, L123 (2002).
  10. Livio, M., “The Jet Set,” Nature, 417, 125 (2002).
  11. Livio, M., Riess, A., & Sparks, W., “Will Jets Identify the Progenitors of Type Ia Supernovae?” ApJ, 571, L99 (2002).
  12. Ogilvie, G. I. & Livio, M., “Launching of Jets and the Vertical Structure of Accretion Disks,” ApJ, 553, 158 (2001).
  13. Livio, M. & Soker, N., “The Twin-Jet Planetary Nebula of M2–9,” ApJ, 552, 685 (2001).
  14. Alexander, T. & Livio, M., “Tidal Scattering of Stars on Supermassive Black Holes in Galactic Centers,” ApJ, 560, L143 (2001).
  15. Livio, M., “Astrophysical Jets,” in Cosmic Explosions, eds. S. S. Holt & W. W. Zhang (Melville: AIP), 275 (2000).
  16. Armitage, P. & Livio, M., “Black Hole Formation Via Hypercritical Accretion,” ApJ, 532, 540 (2000).
  17. Livio, M., “The Beauty of Black Holes,” Mercury, Sept.–Oct. (2000).
  18. Ayal, S., Livio, M., & Piran, T., “Tidal Disruption of a Solar Type Star by a Supermassive Black Hole,” ApJ, 545, 772 (2000).
  19. Livio, M., “Astrophysical Jets,” Phys. Rep., 311, 225 (1999).
  20. Livio, M., Ogilvie, G., & Pringle, J., “Extracting Energy from Black Holes,” ApJ, 512, 100 (1999).
  21. Junor, W., Biretta, J. A., & Livio, M., “Formation of the Radio Jet in M87 at 100 Schwarzschild Radii from the Central Black Hole,” Nature, 401, 891 (1999).
  22. Livio, M., “Jets: Some Recent Developments,” in 13th North American Workshop on Cataclysmic Variables, (San Francisco, ASP), 264 (1998).
  23. Knigge, C. & Livio, M., “On Jet Features in the Optical Spectra of CVs,” MNRAS, 297, 1079 (1998).
  24. Knigge, C. & Livio, M., “On the Absence of Jet Features in the Optical Spectra of CVs,” MNRAS, 297, 1079 (1998).
  25. Livio, M., Xu, C., & Frank, J., “On the Magnetic Field Evolution in Isolated Neutron Stars,” ApJ, 492, 298 (1998).
  26. Southwell, K. A., Livio, M., & Pringle, J. E., “Precessing Jets in Supersoft X-Ray Sources,” ApJ, 448, L29 (1997).
  27. Shahbaz, T., Livio, M., Southwell, K. A., & Charles, P. A., “T Pyxidis: The First Short-Period CV with a Collimated Jet,” ApJ, 484, L59 (1997).
  28. Livio, M., “The Formation of Astrophysical Jets,” in Accretion Phenomena and Related Outflows, IAU Symp. 163, eds. D. T. Wickramasinghe et al. (San Francisco: ASP), p. 845, (1997).
  29. Livio, M. & Pringle, J. E., “Wobbling Accretion Disks, Jets, and Point-Symmetric Nebulae,” ApJ, 486, 835 (1997).
  30. Frank, A., Balick, B., & Livio, M., “A Mechanism for the Production of Jets and Ansae in Planetary Nebulae,” ApJ, 471, L53 (1996).
  31. Cannizzo, J. K., Chen, W., & Livio, M., “The Accretion Disk Limit Cycle Instability in Black Hole X-Ray Binaries,” ApJ, 454, 880 (1996).
  32. Cliffe, J. A., Frank, A., Livio, M., & Jones, T. W., “Precessing Jets and Point-Symmetric Nebulae,” ApJ, 447, L49 (1995).
  33. Soker, N. & Livio, M., “Disks and Jets in Planetary Nebulae,” ApJ, 421, 219 (1994).
  34. Burgarella, D., Livio, M. and O’Dea, C., Astrophysical Jets, Cambridge University Press (1993).
  35. Livio, M., “Intriguing Morphologies, Jets and Disks in Planetary Nebulae,” in Theory of Accretion Disks II, eds. W. Duschl, et al., p. 411 (1993).
  36. Chen, W., Livio, M., & Gehrels, N., “The Secondary Maxima in Black Hole X-Ray Light Curves: Clues toward a Complete Picture,” ApJ, 408, L5 (1993).
  37. Livio, M. & Rosen, N., “Astrophysical Jets and Theories of Gravitation,” ApJ, 387, 458 (1992).
  38. Livio, M., “Wind Accretion by Compact Objects: The Flip-Flop In-stability,” in Evolutionary Processes in Interacting Binary Stars, ed. Y. Kondo, R. F. Sistero and R. S. Polidan, (Dordrecht: Kluwer), p. 185 (1992).
  39. Livio, M., “Accretion by Compact Objects from Stellar Winds,” Structure and Emission Properties of Accretion Disks, IAU Colloquium 129, eds. C. Bertout, et al., p. 263 (1991).
  40. Livio, M., “On Accretion by Compact Objects from a Stellar Wind,” in Frontier Objects in Astrophysics and Particle Physics, Vulcano Workshop 1990, ed. F. Giovannelli, p. 67 (1991).
  41. Livio, M., “Neutrino Bursts, Gamma Ray Bursts and Gravitational Radiation from Coalescing Neutron Stars,” in Proceedings of International Workshop on Weak Interactions and Neutrinos, eds. P. Singer and G. Eilam, Nuclear Physics B, 13, p. 383 (1990).
  42. Eichler, D., Livio, M., Piran, T., & Schramm, D. N., “Coalescing Neutron Stars, Naked Neutrino Bursts, Gamma Rays, Gravitational Radiation and r-Process Nucleosynthesis,” Nature, 340, 126 (1989).
  43. Abramowicz, M. A., Livio, M., & Lu, J., “Adiabatic Accretion of Rotating Matter onto a Black Hole,” in Proc. of Grossman Colloquium on General Relativity (1986).
  44. Livio, M., Soker, N., & Dgani, R., “On the Stream-Disk Interaction in Accreting Compact Objects,” ApJ, 305, 267 (1986).
  45. Livio, M., “An Origin for Quasi-Periodic Variations in Magnetic Accreting Compact Objects,” A&A, 141, L4 (1984).
  46. Barranco, M., Buchler, J. R., & Livio, M., “Thermal Limit Cycle Oscillations on the Surface of Accreting Neutron Stars X-Ray Bursters,” ApJ, 242, 1226 (1980).
  47. Livio, M., Shara,M. M., & Shaviv, G., “X-Ray Intensities from the Flow of a Stellar Wind Past a Compact Object,” ApJ, 233, 704 (1979).

Questions

Why is jet collimation considered a hard problem?

Because a jet stays narrow over distances enormously larger than the region that launched it. Producing an outflow is comparatively easy; keeping it from spreading requires ongoing confinement, usually attributed to magnetic fields anchored in the disk, and getting the details to work quantitatively has proved difficult.

Can energy be extracted from a black hole?

Rotational energy can be, in principle, through mechanisms acting on the field threading the hole, never on matter inside the horizon. Several entries in this group address that possibility and what an observer would be able to see if it were operating.

Do white dwarfs produce jets?

That is the question a 2004 entry in this index set out to test, and the reason it matters is structural: if accreting white dwarfs launch jets, then jets belong to disks and not to black holes, and the same physics covers every scale.

Back to the full index