Interaction Between Two Jets in Equal Mass Black Hole Binaries (Aligned Spin)

Potential nontheral emission mechanism for rapidly spinning binary black black holes involving interacting jets in equal mass binaries. Shown is the case when the black holes have dimensionless spin of 0.9375 aligned with the orbital angular momentum (+z).
Left: 3D rendering of the jets, with orange/yellow highlighting regions of high magnetization and blue highlighting regions of high density.
Right: Slices of plasma beta at z=50 rg, 100 rg, and 150 rg overplotted with magnetic field lines.
Magnetic reconnection happens when the jets collide as evidenced by clear "X" points in the magnetic field. This process can dissipate magnetic energy into kinetic and thermal energy while also accelerating electrons to nonthermal energies.