Are the observed filaments in extended radio sources due to synchrotron radiation thermal instabilities?
Abstract
The authors study a model in which the filamentary structure observed in jets and lobes of extended extragalactic radio sources is produced by thermal instabilities driven by the synchrotron-inverse-Compton losses of the expanding plasma assumed to have two gas components (a thermal and a relativistic particle component). The application of the model to the Cen A jet showed that condensations with nonlinear density contrasts ρp/ρo ≈ 2 - 8 are formed and appear to be sufficient to explain the observed bright filaments, where ρp (ρo) is the density at the perturbed (ambient) region.
- Publication:
-
Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica, vol. 21
- Pub Date:
- November 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990RMxAA..21..141D
- Keywords:
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- Radio Sources: Synchrotron Radiation;
- Radio Jets: Radiation Mechanisms