A study of accretion in compact sources: Disk precession and jet helicity

The effect of adiabatic expansion on the propagation and growth of helical twisting on a supersonic jet is investigated. Cooling of the jet material increases the jet's Mach number and increases the jet's density relative to that of the external medium. This has the effect of decreasing the maximum rate of growth and increasing the maximally unstable wavelength relative to the jet's radius. Propagation effects cause the wavelength of helical waves to change at a rate different from that of the maximally unstable wavelength with the result that the characteristic wavelength of helical twisting is not equal to this wavelength. The most rapidly growing helical wave will have a wavelength as much as a factor of 2 different from the instantaneous maximally unstable wavelength.