Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme

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GR: Fachverband Gravitation, Relativistische Astrophysik und Kosmologie

GR 7: Relativistic Astrophysics II

GR 7.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 11:00–11:30, KH 01.016

Electromagnetic jets as strong-gravity probe for rapidly spinning black holes — •Filippo Camilloni and Luciano Rezzolla — Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

The environment around astrophysical black holes is characterised by an abundance of plasma and intense electromagnetic fields subject to strong-gravity conditions. As indicated from analytic computations and numerical simulations this rich phenomenology range from magnetic reconnection, that can trigger a Penrose process involving structures called plasmoids, to the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism, an electromagnetic form of energy extraction that is currently considered the best theoretical candidate to explain the launching of powerful relativistic jets. We discuss the quasi-universal nature of the BZ jet power and how the higher-order perturbative corrections bear signatures of the underlying theory of gravity, thus enabling one use the jet power as a strong-gravity signature to test general relativity on future horizon-scale observations when black holes are rapidly spinning.

Keywords: black holes; relativistic jets; active galactic nuclei; strong gravity tests