The Powers of Relativistic Jets Depend on the Spin of Accreting Supermassive Black Holes

Abstract

Theoretical models show that the power of relativistic jets of active galactic nuclei depends on the spin and mass of the central supermassive black holes, as well as the accretion. Here we report an analysis of archival observations of a sample of blazars. We find a significant correlation between jet kinetic power and the spin of supermassive black holes. At the same time, we use multiple linear regression to analyze the relationship between jet kinetic power and accretion, spin, and black hole mass. We find that the spin of supermassive black holes and accretion are the most important contributions to the jet kinetic power. The contribution rates of both the spin of supermassive black holes and accretion are more than 95%. These results suggest that the spin energy of supermassive black holes powers the relativistic jets. The jet production efficiency of almost all Fermi blazars can be explained by moderately thin, magnetically arrested accretion disks around rapidly spinning black holes.