The jet in M87 is likely powered by the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy via the Blandford–Znajek (BZ) mechanism, through which energy can be siphoned away from a spinning black hole and converted into a Poynting flux jet. The high resolution measurements from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration allow direct investigation of the BZ mechanism, and the next generation of observational experiments will enable a detailed comparison between theory and data.

In this talk, I will discuss how a combination of analytic work and numerical simulations can be used to quantitatively explore the connection between black holes and jets through both detailed modeling of mass injection into the jet near the hole and the identification of robust, universal signatures of the spacetime—including the black hole mass and angular momentum vector—due to light bending near the event horizon.