The kinetic power of jets magnetically accelerated from advection-dominated accretion flows in radio galaxies

Abstract

Abstract There is a significant non-linear correlation between the Eddington ratio (Lbol/LEdd) and the Eddington-scaled kinetic power (Lkin/LEdd) of jets in low luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs). It is believed that these low luminosity AGNs contain advection-dominated accretion flows (ADAFs). We adopt the ADAF model developed by Li & Cao, in which the global dynamics of ADAFs with magnetically driven outflows is derived numerically, to explore the relation between the bolometric luminosity and the kinetic power of jets. We find that the observed relation, , can be well reproduced by the model calculations with reasonable parameters for ADAFs with magnetically driven outflows. Our model calculations are always consistent with the slope of the correlation independent of the values of the parameters adopted. Compared with the observations, our results show that over 60 per cent of the accreted gas at the outer radius escapes from the accretion disc in a wind before the gas falls into the black holes. The observed correlation between the Eddington-scaled kinetic power and Bondi power can also be qualitatively reproduced by our model calculations. Our results show that the mechanical efficiency varies from 10−2 to10−3, which is roughly consistent with that required in AGN feedback simulations.