Magnetically Driven Retrograde Precession in Misaligned Black Hole Accretion Flows

Abstract Observations of accreting black hole (BH) systems, such as microquasars and supermassive BHs, often reveal a precessing jet with changing directions, indicating a misaligned accretion flow relative to the BH spin. The precession is commonly attributed to the Lense–Thirring (LT) effect, which arises from the BH’s rotation twisting the surrounding spacetime and accretion flow. In the strongly magnetized regime, characteristics of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei and other systems that launch powerful jets, the large-scale magnetic field can significantly influence the flow dynamics. Here, we perform large-scale three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of tilted accretion onto a rotating BH and find a never-seen-before new retrograde precession. This precession arises from a magnetic torque on the disk generated by the poloidal magnetic field aligned with the BH’s rotation, opposing the LT torque. This finding highlights the unique property of highly magnetized accretion flows around BHs and provides a new interpretation of jet precession observed in many systems.