Current-carrying beams in astrophysics: models for double radio sources and jets.
Abstract
If beams of particles originate in corotating magnetospheres, they may carry currents far into distant galactic and extragalactic regions. High-current beams can be more stable than beams without current, since they can be insulated from surrounding plasma by magnetic self-fields. Beams with both azimuthal and axial currents can have very low self-forces acting on the particles, i.e., J x B is minimized, and thus enjoy long synchrotron lifetimes. It is shown that these spinning beams may be stable if the long-wavelength modes are suppressed by the inertia of a surrounding plasma sheath. Treating beams by a circuit analogy implies that ohmic dissipation can occur at the tips of the beams, reaccelerating particles, and this may explain the high energies in double radio sources. Jets could be relatively unstable self-pinched beams which are short-lived. In general, adding currents introduces many new physical aspects to the beaming phenomena. Some applications to double radio sources and jets are considered.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- April 1978
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/183.1.29
- Bibcode:
- 1978MNRAS.183...29B
- Keywords:
-
- Astronomical Models;
- Earth Magnetosphere;
- Galactic Radiation;
- Particle Beams;
- Plasma Jets;
- Radio Sources (Astronomy);
- High Current;
- Ohmic Dissipation;
- Particle Trajectories;
- Plasma Pinch;
- Plasma Sheaths;
- Synchrotron Radiation;
- Astrophysics;
- Pairs of Radio Sources:Models