Gravitational electromotive force in magnetic reconnection around Schwarzschild black holes

We analytically explore the effects of the gravitational electromotive force on magnetic reconnection around Schwarzschild black holes through a generalized general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic model that retains two-fluid effects. It is shown that the gravitational electromotive force can couple to collisionless two-fluid effects and drive magnetic reconnection. This is allowed by the departure from quasineutrality in curved spacetime, which is explicitly manifested as the emergence of an effective resistivity in Ohm’s law. The departure from quasineutrality is owed to different gravitational pulls experienced by separate parts of the current layer. This produces an enhancement of the reconnecion rate due to purely gravitational effects.

Figure 1

Sketch of a magnetic reconnection layer showing the studied configuration. The shaded gray area represents the magnetic diffusion region.