Radiative signature of magnetic fields in internal shocks

TL;DR

This study investigates how magnetic fields influence the radiative signatures of internal shocks in relativistic outflows, revealing observable differences based on magnetization levels and implications for blazar classifications.

Contribution

It models internal shocks with varying magnetization levels, identifying observable spectral and light curve differences, and proposes methods to distinguish magnetization states in astrophysical jets.

Findings

Radiative efficiency peaks when one shell is weakly magnetized and the other strongly magnetized.

Significant spectral differences are observed in inverse-Compton, optical, X-ray, and GeV light curves based on magnetization.

Blazar types may correspond to different magnetization regimes, with typical blazars having low magnetization ({c3}<0.01).

Abstract

Common models of blazars and gamma-ray bursts assume that the plasma underlying the ob- served phenomenology is magnetized to some extent. Within this context, radiative signatures of dissipation of kinetic and conversion of magnetic energy in internal shocks of relativistic magnetized outflows are studied. We model internal shocks as being caused by collisions of homogeneous plasma shells. We compute the flow state after the shell interaction by solving Riemann problems at the contact surface between the colliding shells, and then compute the emission from the resulting shocks. Under the assumption of a constant flow luminosity we find that there is a clear difference between the models where both shells are weakly magne- tized ({\sigma}<\sim0.01) and those where, at least, one shell has a {\sigma}>\sim0.01. We obtain that the radiative efficiency is largest for models in which, regardless of the ordering, one shell is weakly and the other strongly magnetized. Substantial differences between weakly and strongly magne- tized shell collisions are observed in the inverse-Compton part of the spectrum, as well as in the optical, X-ray and 1GeV light curves. We propose a way to distinguish observationally between weakly magnetized from magnetized internal shocks by comparing the maximum frequency of the inverse-Compton and synchrotron part of the spectrum to the ratio of the inverse-Compton and synchrotron fluence. Finally, our results suggest that LBL blazars may correspond to barely magnetized flows, while HBL blazars could correspond to moderately magnetized ones. Indeed, by comparing with actual blazar observations we conclude that the magnetization of typical blazars is {\sigma} <\sim 0.01 for the internal shock model to be valid in these sources.