Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Astronomy & Astrophysics, simulations, instabilities, AGN jets, synchrotron emission, polarization, ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI, SHEATH POLARIZATION STRUCTURES, 2-COMPONENT JETS, 5101 Astronomical sciences

Abstract:

© 2017 by the authors. Relativistic jets from active galactic nuclei (AGN) often display a non-uniform structure and are, under certain conditions, susceptible to a number of instabilities. An interesting example is the development of non-axisymmetric, Rayleigh-Taylor type instabilities in the case of differentially rotating two-component jets, with the toroidal component of the magnetic field playing a key role in the development or suppression of these instabilities. We have shown that higher magnetization leads to stability against these non-axisymmetric instabilities. Using ray-casting on data from relativisticMHDsimulations of two-component jets, we now investigate the effect of these instabilities on the synchrotron emission pattern from the jets. We recover many well known trends from actual observations, e.g., regarding the polarization fraction and the distribution of the position angle of the electric field, in addition to a different emitting region, depending on the stability of the jet.