Abstract
We have investigated the influence of jet rotation and differential motion on the linear and nonlinear development of the current-driven (CD) kink instability of force-free helical magnetic equilibria via threedimensional relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations. In this study, we follow the temporal development within a periodic computational box. Displacement of the initial helical magnetic field leads to the growth of the CD kink instability. In rotating relativistic jet case, developed helical kink structure propagates along jet axis with continuous growth of kink amplitude. The growth rate of CD kink instability does not depend on the jet rotation. The coupling of multiple unstable wavelengths is crucial to determining whether the jet is eventually disrupted in nonlinear stage. The strongly deformed magnetic field via CD kink instability may trigger of magnetic reconnection in the jet.
Highlights
Relativistic jets are seen in a wide variety of astrophysical compact objects ranging from small-scale microquasar jets to large-scale extragalactic jets
General relativistic MHD (GRMHD) simulations with spinning black holes indicate jet production consisting of a Poynting dominated, high Lorentz factor spine, and a matter dominated, mildly relativistic sheath with v < c possibly embedded in a lower speed, v
In our previous paper [22], we considered helically magnetized static plasma columns for the RMHD simulations of the CD kink instability in relativistic jets
Summary
Relativistic jets are seen in a wide variety of astrophysical compact objects ranging from small-scale microquasar jets to large-scale extragalactic jets. The jets from black hole binary systems (microquasars; e.g., Mirabel & Rodoriguez 1999), active galactic nuclei (AGNs; e.g., [1,2,3]), and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs; e.g., [4,5,6]) have relativistic speed. O’Neill et al (2012) have investigated the CD kink instability in a local, co-moving frame [24] Their results for a static, force-free configuration are consistent with ours. EPJ Web of Conferences ity of Poynting dominated jets in 3D RMHD simulations [25,26,27]
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