Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-12T14:44:06.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dynamical and Microphysical Constraints on Accreting Magnetospheric Clouds in Active Galactic Nuclei

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Zdenka Kuncic
Zdenka Kuncic*
Affiliation:
ANU Astrophysical Theory Centre, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
*
This work was undertaken and completed at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK.

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The range of microphysical and dynamical timescales at the centres of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is sufficiently wide to permit multiphase structure. In particular, very dense, cool clouds can coexist with a hot, magnetically-dominated plasma. The strong dynamical forces in this central magnetosphere can give rise to clouds so small that microphysical processes determine whether they can survive for long enough to produce potentially observable spectral signatures due to thermal reprocessing. Specific physical constraints on the scale sizes of such reprocessing clouds are examined. It is found that there exists a parameter subspace in the extreme high density regime for which gas can sustain cool temperatures whilst maintaining pressure equilibrium with the ambient magnetosphere.

Type
Part 3. Fundamental Physical Processes
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 163: Accretion Phenomena and Related Outflows , 1997 , pp. 126 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1997

References

Barvainis, R., 1993, ApJ, 412, 513 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celotti, A., Fabian, A.C. & Rees, M.J. 1992, MNRAS, 255, 419 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, K. 1972, ApJ, 171, 213 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuncic, Z., Blackman, E.G. & Rees, M.J. 1996, MNRAS(in press)Google Scholar
Netzer, H. 1993, ApJ, 411, 594 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, M.J. 1984, ARA&A, 22, 477 Google Scholar
Rees, M.J. 1987, MNRAS, 228, 47pCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zdziarski, A.A., Johnson, W.N., Done, C., Smith, D. & McNaron-Brown, K., 1995, ApJ, 438, L63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar