Toma, K, Komissarov, SS and Porth, O (2017) Rayleigh–Taylor instability in two-component relativistic jets. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 472 (1). pp. 1253-1258. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
Relativistic jets associated with active galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts propagate over huge distances without significant loss of momentum. At the same time they are bright emitters, which is indicative of strong energy dissipation. This points towards a mechanism of internal dissipation which does not result in a global disruption of the flow. One possibility is internal shocks and another one is turbulence driven by local instabilities. Such instabilities can be triggered when a freely expanding jet is reconfined by either the cocoon or external gas pressure. In this paper, we study the dynamics of two-component spine-sheath hydrodynamic jets coming into pressure equilibrium with external gas using 2D computer simulations. We find that the jet oscillations lead to a rapid onset of Rayleigh–Taylor-type instabilities, which results in additional internal dissipation and mixing of the jet components. Although slightly different in details, this outcome holds both for the heavy-spine-light-sheath and light-spine-heavy-sheath configurations. The results may provide an explanation to the spatial flaring observed in some AGN jets on kpc-scales.
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2017, The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. | ||||
Keywords: | hydrodynamics; instabilities; relativistic processes; galaxies: active; galaxies: jets | ||||
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Institution: | The University of Leeds | ||||
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Mathematics (Leeds) > Applied Mathematics (Leeds) | ||||
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Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications | ||||
Date Deposited: | 27 Nov 2017 13:30 | ||||
Last Modified: | 27 Nov 2017 13:30 | ||||
Status: | Published | ||||
Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx1770 | ||||
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