Thursday, October 22, 2026

Two Disks in One: How Accretion Disks Drive Black Hole Jets

This artist's illustration shows a rapidly-feeding supermassive black hole launching jets from its poles. For this to happen, the accretion disk has to have large-scale magnetic fields. But not all do, generating a contradiction. New research has an answer. Image Credit: Tohoku University.

SMBH jets are driven by thick, hot accretion disks with powerful magnetic fields. But there's a bit of a paradox. Some SMBH produce jets, even though they appear to have thin, cold accretion disks. New research has solved this paradox, showing that disks can be truncated into an outer cold disk and an inner hot disk.



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