2019ApJ...883...69I

We performed numerical simulations of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics with uniform resistivity to investigate the occurrence of magnetic reconnection in a split-monopole magnetic field around a Schwarzschild black hole. We found that magnetic reconnection happens near the black hole at its equatorial plane. The magnetic reconnection has a point-like reconnection region and slow shock waves, as in the Petschek reconnection model. The magnetic reconnection rate decreases as the resistivity becomes smaller. When the global magnetic Reynolds number is 10⁴ or larger, the magnetic reconnection rate increases linearly with time from 2τ_S to ∼10τ_S (τ_S = r_S/c, r_S is the Schwarzschild radius and c is the speed of light). The linear increase of the reconnection rate agrees with the magnetic reconnection in the Rutherford regime of the tearing mode instability.