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Radiative Acceleration of Astrophysical Jets: Line-Locking in SS 433

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

Paul R. Shapiro
Affiliation:
Dept. of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin
Mordecai Milgrom
Affiliation:
Dept. of Nuclear Physics, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel
Martin J. Rees*
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, U. K.

Abstract

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Observations of SS433 are consistent with the view that the Doppler-shifted line emission originates in a pair of oppositely-directed, precessing jets in which a gas outflow is maintained at the remarkably time- and space-invariant speed of 0.26c. A radiative acceleration mechanism is described for the jets and a detailed, numerical, relativistic flow calculation presented which explain this terminal velocity as the result of “line-locking”. The “line-locking” mechanism suggested here for SS433 may be important as well in extra-galactic radio sources in which the radio luminosity is similarly weak compared with the kinetic energy and optical luminosities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1982 

References

Milgrom, M. 1979, Astron. Astrophys., 78, L17.Google Scholar