Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userRelativistic MHD simulations of core-collapse GRB jets: 3D instabilities and magnetic dissipation
70
0
0.0
(
0
)
Added by
Alexander Tchekhovskoy
Publication date
2015
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
Omer Bromberg
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Relativistic jets naturally occur in astrophysical systems that involve accretion onto compact objects, such as core collapse of massive stars in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and accretion onto supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGN). It is generally accepted that these jets are powered electromagnetically, by the magnetised rotation of a central compact object. However, how they produce the observed emission and survive the propagation for many orders of magnitude in distance without being disrupted by current-driven non-axisymmetric instabilities is the subject of active debate. We carry out time-dependent 3D relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of relativistic, Poynting flux dominated jets. The jets are launched self-consistently by the rotation of a strongly magnetised central compact object. This determines the natural degree of azimuthal magnetic field winding, a crucial factor that controls jet stability. We find that the jets are susceptible to two types of instability: (i) a global, external kink mode that grows on long time scales and causes the jets to bodily bend sideways. Whereas this mode does not cause jet disruption over the simulated distances, it substantially reduces jet propagation speed. We show, via an analytic model, that the growth of the external kink mode depends on the slope of the ambient medium density profile. In flat density distributions characteristic of galactic cores, an AGN jet may stall, whereas in stellar envelopes the external kink weakens as the jet propagates outward; (ii) a local, internal kink mode that grows over short time scales and causes small-angle magnetic reconnection and conversion of about half of jet electromagnetic energy flux into heat. Based on the robustness and energetics of the internal kink mode, we suggest that this instability is the main dissipation mechanism responsible for powering GRB prompt emission.
rate research
Read More
Gas falling into a black hole (BH) from large distances is unaware of BH spin direction, and misalignment between the accretion disc and BH spin is expected to be common. However, the physics of tilted discs (e.g., angular momentum transport and jet formation) is poorly understood. Using our new GPU-accelerated code H-AMR, we performed 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of tilted thick accretion discs around rapidly spinning BHs, at the highest resolution to date. We explored the limit where disc thermal pressure dominates magnetic pressure, and showed for the first time that, for different magnetic field strengths on the BH, these flows launch magnetized relativistic jets propagating along the rotation axis of the tilted disc (rather than of the BH). If strong large-scale magnetic flux reaches the BH, it bends the inner few gravitational radii of the disc and jets into partial alignment with the BH spin. On longer time scales, the simulated disc-jet system as a whole undergoes Lense-Thirring precession and approaches alignment, demonstrating for the first time that jets can be used as probes of disc precession. When the disc turbulence is well-resolved, our isolated discs spread out, causing both the alignment and precession to slow down.
Energy deposition by active galactic nuclei jets into the ambient medium can affect galaxy formation and evolution, the cooling of gas flows at the centres of galaxy clusters, and the growth of the supermassive black holes. However, the processes that couple jet power to the ambient medium and determine jet morphology are poorly understood. For instance, there is no agreement on the cause of the well-known Fanaroff-Riley (FR) morphological dichotomy of jets, with FRI jets being shorter and less stable than FRII jets. We carry out global 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations of relativistic jets propagating through the ambient medium. We show that the flat density profiles of galactic cores slow down and collimate the jets, making them susceptible to the 3D magnetic kink instability. We obtain a critical power, which depends on the galaxy core mass and radius, below which jets become kink-unstable within the core, stall, and inflate cavities filled with relativistically-hot plasma. Jets above the critical power stably escape the core and form powerful backflows. Thus, the kink instability controls the jet morphology and can lead to the FR dichotomy. The model-predicted dependence of the critical power on the galaxy optical luminosity agrees well with observations.
Pulsars out of their parent SNR directly interact with the ISM producing so called Bow-Shock Pulsar Wind Nebulae, the relativistic equivalents of the heliosphere/heliotail system. These have been directly observed from Radio to X-ray, and are found also associated to TeV halos, with a large variety of morphologies. They offer a unique environment where the pulsar wind can be studied by modelling its interaction with the surrounding ambient medium, in a fashion that is different/complementary from the canonical Plerions. These systems have also been suggested as the possible origin of the positron excess detected by AMS and PAMELA, in contrast to dark matter. I will present results from 3D Relativistic MHD simulations of such nebulae. On top of these simulations we computed the expected emission signatures, the properties of high energy particle escape, the role of current sheets in channeling cosmic rays, the level of turbulence and magnetic amplification, and how they depend on the wind structure and magnetisation.
The properties of relativistic jets, their interaction with the ambient environment, and particle acceleration due to kinetic instabilities are studied self-consistently with Particle-in-Cell simulations. An important key issue is how a toroidal magnetic field affects the evolution of an e$^{pm}$ and an e$^{-}$ - p$^{+}$ jet, how kinetic instabilities such as the Weibel instability (WI), the mushroom instability (MI) and the kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (kKHI) are excited, and how such instabilities contribute to particle acceleration. We show that WI, MI and kKHI excited at the linear stage, generate a quasi-steady $x$-component of electric field which accelerates and decelerates electrons. In this work, we use a new jet injection scheme where an electric current is self-consistently generated at the jet orifice by the jet particles. We inject both e$^{pm}$ and e$^{-}$ - p$^{+}$ jets with a toroidal magnetic field (with a top-hat jet density profile) and for a sufficiently long time in order to examine the non-linear effects of the jet evolution. Despite the weakness of the initial magnetic field, we observe significant differences in the structure of the strong electromagnetic fields that are driven by the kinetic instabilities. We find that different jet compositions present different strongly excited instability modes. The magnetic field in the non-linear stage generated by different instabilities becomes dissipated and reorganized into a new topology. The 3-dimensional magnetic field topology indicates possible reconnection sites and the accelerated particles are significantly accelerated in the non-linear stage by the dissipation of the magnetic field and/or reconnection. This study will shed further light on the nature of astrophysical relativistic magnetized jet phenomena.
We construct the equation of state (EOS) of dense matter covering a wide range of temperature, proton fraction, and density for the use of core-collapse supernova simulations. The study is based on the relativistic mean-field (RMF) theory, which can provide an excellent description of nuclear matter and finite nuclei. The Thomas--Fermi approximation in combination with assumed nucleon distribution functions and a free energy minimization is adopted to describe the non-uniform matter, which is composed of a lattice of heavy nuclei. We treat the uniform matter and non-uniform matter consistently using the same RMF theory. We present two sets of EOS tables, namely EOS2 and EOS3. EOS2 is an update of our earlier work published in 1998 (EOS1), where only the nucleon degree of freedom is taken into account. EOS3 includes additional contributions from $Lambda$ hyperons. The effect of $Lambda$ hyperons on the EOS is negligible in the low-temperature and low-density region, whereas it tends to soften the EOS at high density. In comparison with EOS1, EOS2 and EOS3 have an improved design of ranges and grids, which covers the temperature range $T=0.1$--$10^{2.6}$ MeV with the logarithmic grid spacing $Delta log_{10}(T/rm{[MeV]})=0.04$ (92 points including T=0), the proton fraction range $Y_p=0$--0.65 with the linear grid spacing $Delta Y_p = 0.01$ (66 points), and the density range $rho_B=10^{5.1}$--$10^{16},rm{g,cm^{-3}}$ with the logarithmic grid spacing $Delta log_{10}(rho_B/rm{[g,cm^{-3}]}) = 0.1$ (110 points).
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
