Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003apj...596..840s&link_type=abstract
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 596, Issue 2, pp. 840-846.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
4
Elementary Particles, Galaxies: Active, Galaxies: Jets, Plasmas, Radiation Mechanisms: Nonthermal
Scientific paper
The influence of interstellar neutrals on the relativistic pickup process in jets of active galactic nuclei is investigated. It is assumed that the jet plasma consists of thermally distributed electron-positron pairs. Using the formalism of Weaver and the electron impact ionization cross section of Lotz for neutral hydrogen H I and neutral helium He I, the corresponding ionization lengths in the comoving outflow frame of reference are calculated. For nonrelativistic pair temperatures the ionization lengths are constants and of order ~=2×1014Γ/np,8 cm, where Γ denotes the outflow bulk Lorentz factor and np,8 is the comoving pair density in units of 108 cm-3. We estimate that about 5%-9% of the neutrals are ionized in the outflow region. After ionization these pickup ions and electrons form an anisotropic backward-propagating beam distribution in the outflow plasma, which initiates two-stream instabilities.
Pohl Mario
Schlickeiser Reinhard
Vainio Rami
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