Sgr A* as a Galactic PeVatron: Multimessenger Signatures of the Magnetic Penrose Process
The magnetic Penrose process (MPP) is one of the most efficient mechanisms for extracting rotational energy from a magnetized Kerr black hole (BH), enabling charged particles to reach very-high energies. We investigate this process in Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive BH at the Galactic center (GC), focusing on its ultra-high-efficiency regime, in which neutrons undergo beta decay inside the BH ergosphere. As a key novelty, we compute the neutron production spectrum in the accretion flow directly from the nuclear reaction kinematics and follow neutron trajectories in the Kerr spacetime to determine the population that reaches the ergosphere and undergoes the MPP. From this population, we derive the spectrum of accelerated protons and show that Sgr A* can accelerate them up to PeV energies, strengthening its interpretation as a candidate Galactic PeVatron. We further compute the gamma-ray and neutrino emission produced through hadronic interactions of the escaping protons in the Central Molecular Zone. The predicted gamma-ray fluxes exhibit distinctive spectral features that could provide an observational signature of the MPP and may constitute a non-negligible contribution to the very-high-energy emission detected by H.E.S.S. and HAWC. The associated neutrino fluxes remain below the diffuse Galactic component inferred by IceCube, but may still contribute to the high-energy emission from the GC. Remarkably, the predicted signals lie within the projected sensitivity of SWGO for all scenarios considered here and, for some models, only a factor of a few below the nominal CTAO sensitivity, while KM3NeT/ARCA and IceCube-Gen2 will provide complementary tests. Our results establish the MPP as an observable mechanism for extracting BH rotational energy, providing a direct connection between horizon-scale physics and multimessenger observations that can be extended to other magnetized BHs.