Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T11:30:06.186Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Magnetic field transport from AGN cores to jets, lobes, and the IGM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2008

Philipp P. Kronberg
Philipp P. Kronberg*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

I describe various stages of energy flow along an extragalactic jet, which subsequently evolves into an extended lobe which is visible in radio and X-rays. The sizes of the lobes vary from kpc scales to several megaparsec, so that the largest lobes are clearly injecting back hole energy into the IGM on scales comparable with a galaxy-galaxy separation. This is sometimes loosely referred to as Black hole-IGM “feedback”. My talk begins with a well-formed jet, and avoids the complex and unclarified physics at less than a few Schwarzschild radii that cause the initial launching the jet.

This presentation focuses on recent thinking and supercomputer simulations that appear to clarify the fundamental nature of these remarkable jets and lobes. The energy transport process appears to be electrodynamic, rather than particle beam–driven. A new observational verification of a 1018 Ampère current in an actual jet is concordant with the predictions and simulations of poynting flux-dominated electromagnetic jets. In this model the current is tightly related to the BH mass and angular energy.

The magneto-plasma properties of the lobes must obviously match to the jets which feed them. The “energy sink” phase is when BH energy is ultimately deposited on supra-galactic scales. The process from the BH to the lobe production happens with remarkable efficiency. The presence or absence of a galaxy cluster environment creates laboratory conditions that help to calibrate the energy flow paths, and the magnetic rigidity of these jet-lobe systems.

I conclude by describing recent, sensitive radio observations on supra-cluster scales that test for final magnetic energy deposition - the “sink” phase - into the intergalactic medium.

Keywords

Galaxies: jets – galaxies: active – galaxies: magnetic fields – intergalactic medium
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 4 , Symposium S259: Cosmic Magnetic Fields: From Planets, to Stars and Galaxies , November 2008 , pp. 499 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2009

References

Benford, G. & Protheroe, R. J. 2008, MNRAS 383, 663Google Scholar
Blandford, R. D. & Znajek, R. L. 1977, MNRAS 197, 433Google Scholar
Bridle, A. H., Hough, D. H., Lonsdale, C. J., Burns, J. O., & Laing, R. A. 1994, AJ 108, 766Google Scholar
Li, H., Colgate, S. A., Wendroff, B., & Liska, X. Z. 2001, ApJ 581, 874Google Scholar
Diehl, S., Li, H., Fryer, C. L., & Rafferty, D. 2008, ApJ, in pressGoogle Scholar
Kataoka, J., Edwards, P., Georganopoulos, M., Takahara, F., & Wagner, S. 2003, A&A 399, 91Google Scholar
Kovalev, V. V., Lister, M. L., Homan, D. C., & Kellermann, K. I. 2007, ApJ 668, L27Google Scholar
Kronberg, P. P. 1976a, ApJ 203, L47Google Scholar
Kronberg, P. P. 1976b, I.A.U. Symp. 74Google Scholar
Kronberg, P. P., Burbidge, E. M., Smith, H. E., & Strom, R. G. 1977, ApJ 218, 8Google Scholar
Kronberg, P. P. 1986, Can.J. Phys. 64, 449Google Scholar
Kronberg, P. P., Dufton, Q. W., Li, H., & Colgate, S. A 2001, ApJ 560, 178Google Scholar
Kronberg, P. P., Kothes, R., Salter, C. J., & Perillat, P. 2007, ApJ 659, 267Google Scholar
Lapenta, G. & Kronberg, P. P. 2005, ApJ 625, 37Google Scholar
Leahy, P. & Perley, R. A. 1991, AJ 102, 537Google Scholar
Lesch, H., Appl, S., & Camenzind, M. 1989, A&A 225, 341Google Scholar
Li, H., Lapenta, G., Finn, J. M., Li, S., & Colgate, S. A. 2006, ApJ 643, 92Google Scholar
Lovelace, R. V. E. 1976, Nature 262, 649Google Scholar
Nakamura, M., Tregillis, I. L., Li, H., & Li, S. 2008, ApJ 686, 843Google Scholar
Owen, F. N., Biretta, J., & Eilek, J. 1989, ApJ 698, 707Google Scholar
Robinson, K., Dursi, L. J., Ricker, P. M., Rosner, R., Calder, A. C., Zingale, J. W., Truran, J. W., Linde, T., Cacares, A., Fryxell, B., Olson, K., Riley, K., Siegel, A., & Vladimirova, N. 2004, ApJ 601, 623Google Scholar
Wise, M. W., McNamara, B. R., Nulsen, , Houck, P. E. J., & David, L. P. 2007, ApJ 659, 1153Google Scholar
Xu, Y., Kronberg, P. P., Habib, S., & Dufton, Q. W. 2007, ApJ 637, 19Google Scholar