Abstract
In this study we investigate jet interaction at a microscopic level in a cosmological environment, which responds to a key open question in the study of relativistic jets. Using small simulation systems during prior research, we initially studied the evolution of both electron-proton and electron-positron relativistic jets containing helical magnetic fields, by focusing on their interactions with an ambient plasma. Here, using larger jet radii, we have performed simulations of global jets containing helical magnetic fields in order to examine how helical magnetic fields affect kinetic instabilities such as the Weibel instability, the kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (kKHI) and the Mushroom instability (MI). We found that the evolution of global jets strongly depends on the size of the jet radius. For example, phase bunching of jet electrons, in particular in the electron-proton jet, is mixed with larger jet radius due to the more complicated structures of magnetic fields with excited kinetic instabilities. In our simulation study these kinetic instabilities lead to new types of instabilities in global jets. In the electron-proton jet simulation a modified recollimation occurs and jet electrons are strongly perturbed. In the electron-positron jet simulation mixed kinetic instabilities occur at early times followed by a turbulence-like structure. Simulations using much larger (and longer) systems are further required in order to thoroughly investigate the evolution of global jets containing helical magnetic fields.
Highlights
Relativistic jets are collimated plasma outflows associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN), gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), stellar-mass black holes, and pulsars (e.g., [1])
The key issue we investigated was how the helical magnetic fields affect the growth of the kinetic Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (kKHI), the mushroom instability (MI), and the Weibel instability
In our simulations [5], cylindrical jets were injected with a helical magnetic field, implemented to the RMHD simulations performed by Mizuno et al [10]
Summary
Relativistic jets are collimated plasma outflows associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN), gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), stellar-mass black holes, and pulsars (e.g., [1]). Among these astrophysical systems, blazars and GRB jets produce the most luminous phenomena in the universe (e.g., [2]). Astrophysical jets are ubiquitous in the universe and involve many essential/basic plasma phenomena, such as interaction with the interstellar medium, the generation of magnetic fields, turbulence, reconnection, and particle acceleration. We carried out kinetic plasma simulations using our relativistic particle-in-cell (RPIC) code with the intent to advance our knowledge of global relativistic jets with helical magnetic fields and associated phenomena, such as particle acceleration, kinetic reconnection, and turbulence, which cannot be investigated with fluid models (i.e., relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) simulations). We describe the preliminary results of this study of global relativistic jets containing helical magnetic fields
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