Penrose Pair Production in Massive, Extreme Kerr Black Holes

Authors

D. Leiter, University of Missouri - Kansas CityFollow
Menas Kafatos, Chapman UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1978

Abstract

We show that in the case of very massive (M > 108 M0 ) Kerr black holes with extreme ranges of angular momentum 1 ≥ a/M > 0.998, the possibility of photon-induced Penrose pair production (PPP) in the ergosphere is very plausible. The pairs that escape the ergosphere are very high energy and on the order of the GeV rest mass of the Penrose accreted protons which participate in the photon-induced pair production process. Application of this model to the case of quasistellar objects (QSOs) is shown to lead to reasonable predictions about their masses, lifetimes, and luminosities. The physical mechanism is very general, and also can be applied to other types of active galactic nuclei.

Comments

This article was originally published in Astrophysical Journal, volume 226, in 1978. DOI: 10.1086/156581

Recommended Citation

Leiter, D., Kafatos, M. (1978) Penrose Pair Production in Massive, Extreme Kerr Black Holes, Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 226:32-36. doi: 10.1086/156581

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

IOP Publishing