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Register a new userEstimates of relativistic electron and proton energy densities in starburst galactic nuclei from radio measurements
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The energy density of energetic protons, U_p, in several nearby starburst nuclei (SBNs) has been directly deduced from gamma-ray measurements of the radiative decay of neutral pions produced in interactions with ambient protons. Lack of sufficient sensitivity and spatial resolution makes this direct deduction unrealistic in the foreseeable future for even moderately distant SBNs. A more viable indirect method for determining U_p in star-forming galaxies is to use its theoretically based scaling to the energy density of energetic electrons, U_e, which can be directly deduced from radio synchrotron and possibly also nonthermal hard X-ray emission. In order to improve the quantitative basis and diagnostic power of this leptonic method we reformulate and clarify its main aspects. Doing so we obtain a basic expression for the ratio U_p/U_e in terms of the proton and electron masses and the power-law indices that characterize the particle spectral distributions in regions where the total particle energy density is at equipartition with that of the mean magnetic field. We also express the field strength and the particle energy density in the equipartition region in terms of the regions size, mean gas density, IR and radio fluxes, and distance from the observer, and determine values of U_p in a sample of nine nearby and local SBNs.
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Magnetic reconnection is often invoked to explain the non-thermal radiation of relativistic outflows, including jets of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Motivated by the largely unknown plasma composition of AGN jets, we study reconnection in the unexplored regime of electron-positron-proton (pair-proton) plasmas with large-scale two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We cover a wide range of pair multiplicities (lepton-to-proton number ratio $kappa=1-199$) for different values of the all-species plasma magnetization ($sigma=1,3$ and 10) and electron temperature ($Theta_eequiv kT_e/m_ec^2=0.1-100$). We focus on the dependence of the post-reconnection energy partition and lepton energy spectra on the hot pair plasma magnetization $sigma_{e,h}$ (i.e., the ratio of magnetic to pair enthalpy densities). We find that the post-reconnection energy is shared roughly equally between magnetic fields, pairs, and protons for $sigma_{e,h}gtrsim 3$. We empirically find that the mean lepton Lorentz factor in the post-reconnection region depends on $sigma, Theta_e$, and $sigma_{e,h}$ as $langle gamma_e-1rangle approx sqrt{sigma}(1+4Theta_e)left(1+sigma_{e,h}/30right)$, for $sigmage1$. The high-energy part of the post-reconnection lepton energy distributions can be described by a power law, whose slope is mainly controlled by $sigma_{e,h}$ for $kappa gtrsim 3-6$, with harder power laws obtained for higher magnetizations. We finally show that reconnection in pair-proton plasmas with multiplicities $kappa sim 1-20$, magnetizations $sigma sim 1-10$, and temperatures $Theta_e sim 1-10$ results in particle power law slopes and average electron Lorentz factors that are consistent with those inferred in leptonic models of AGN jet emission.
We explore possible physical origin of correlation between radio wave and very-high-energy neutrino emission in active galactic nuclei (AGN), suggested by recently reported evidence for correlation between neutrino arrival directions and positions of brightest radio-loud AGN. We show that such correlation is expected if both synchrotron emitting electrons and neutrinos originate from decays of charged pions produced in proton-proton interactions in parsec-scale relativistic jet propagating through circum-nuclear medium of the AGN.
This is a White Paper in support of the mission concept of the Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT), proposed as a medium-sized ESA mission. We discuss the potential of LOFT for the study of radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei. For a summary, we refer to the paper.
Hot collisionless accretion flows, such as the one in Sgr A$^{*}$ at our Galactic center, provide a unique setting for the investigation of magnetic reconnection. Here, protons are non-relativistic while electrons can be ultra-relativistic. By means of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate electron and proton heating in the outflows of trans-relativistic reconnection (i.e., $sigma_wsim 0.1-1$, where the magnetization $sigma_w$ is the ratio of magnetic energy density to enthalpy density). For both electrons and protons, we find that heating at high $beta_{rm i}$ (here, $beta_{rm i}$ is the ratio of proton thermal pressure to magnetic pressure) is dominated by adiabatic compression (adiabatic heating), while at low $beta_{rm i}$ it is accompanied by a genuine increase in entropy (irreversible heating). For our fiducial $sigma_w=0.1$, the irreversible heating efficiency at $beta_{rm i}lesssim 1$ is nearly independent of the electron-to-proton temperature ratio $T_{rm e}/T_{rm i}$ (which we vary from $0.1$ up to $1$), and it asymptotes to $sim 2%$ of the inflowing magnetic energy in the low-$beta_{rm i}$ limit. Protons are heated more efficiently than electrons at low and moderate $beta_{rm i}$ (by a factor of $sim7$), whereas the electron and proton heating efficiencies become comparable at $beta_{rm i}sim 2$ if $T_{rm e}/T_{rm i}=1$, when both species start already relativistically hot. We find comparable heating efficiencies between the two species also in the limit of relativistic reconnection ($sigma_wgtrsim 1$). Our results have important implications for the two-temperature nature of collisionless accretion flows, and may provide the sub-grid physics needed in general relativistic MHD simulations.
Collimated outflows (jets) appear to be a ubiquitous phenomenon associated with the accretion of material onto a compact object. Despite this ubiquity, many fundamental physics aspects of jets are still poorly understood and constrained. These include the mechanism of launching and accelerating jets, the connection between these processes and the nature of the accretion flow, and the role of magnetic fields; the physics responsible for the collimation of jets over tens of thousands to even millions of gravitational radii of the central accreting object; the matter content of jets; the location of the region(s) accelerating particles to TeV (possibly even PeV and EeV) energies (as evidenced by gamma-ray emission observed from many jet sources) and the physical processes responsible for this particle acceleration; the radiative processes giving rise to the observed multi-wavelength emission; and the topology of magnetic fields and their role in the jet collimation and particle acceleration processes. This chapter reviews the main knowns and unknowns in our current understanding of relativistic jets, in the context of the main model ingredients for Galactic and extragalactic jet sources. It discusses aspects specific to active Galactic nuclei (especially blazars) and microquasars, and then presents a comparative discussion of similarities and differences between them.
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