Gamma-Rays from the Funnels of Thick Accretion Disks Around Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract

We analyse the propagation of particles in the narrow funnel of a thick accretion disk. It is assumed that: (1) the funnel walls emit black body radiation with temperature decreasing outwards; (2) the magnetic and electric fields are longitudinal in the funnel. Such a scenario is consistent with models in which a large potential drop is induced by a rotating massive black hole threaded by a magnetic field (Blandford & Znajek 1977, Macdonald & Thorne 1982). The interaction of relativistic protons with thermal photons from the funnel results in direct production of pairs and/or pions. We discuss the relative importance of these processes for different conditions in the funnel (temperature and electric field profiles). Injected pairs interact with thermal photons in the Thomson or Klein-Nishina regime. Under some conditions, a pair avalanche results, which we assume saturates in the production of stable bunches, containing almost equal numbers of electrons and positrons. As a consequence, highly collimated gamma-ray photons are produced. We obtain gamma-ray spectra from our model in order to test its applicability to the gamma-ray emitting AGNs recently reported by EGRET.