The Parabolic Jet Structure in M87 as a Magnetohydrodynamic Nozzle

TL;DR

This paper investigates the parabolic structure of the M87 jet as a magnetohydrodynamic nozzle, providing evidence for magnetic acceleration and detailed flow properties through VLBI data analysis and MHD modeling.

Contribution

It offers the first evidence of trans-fast magnetosonic flow features in an astrophysical jet and models the jet as a Poynting-flux dominated MHD nozzle.

Findings

Jet follows a parabolic streamline over five orders of magnitude in distance.

Jet becomes super-escape and super-fast magnetosonic around 10^3 r_s.

Jet is magnetically accelerated and thermally confined by the surrounding ISM.

Abstract

The structure and dynamics of the M87 jet from sub-milli-arcsec to arcsecond scales are continuously examined. We analysed the VLBA archival data taken at 43 and 86 GHz to measure the size of VLBI cores. Millimeter/sub-mm VLBI cores are considered as innermost jet emissions, which has been originally suggested by Blandford & K\"onigl. Those components fairly follow an extrapolated parabolic streamline in our previous study so that the jet has a single power-law structure with nearly five orders of magnitude in the distance starting from the vicinity of the supermassive black hole (SMBH), less than 10 Schwarzschild radius ($r_{\rm s}$). We further inspect the jet parabolic structure as a counterpart of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) nozzle in order to identify the property of a bulk acceleration. We interpret that the parabolic jet consists of Poynting-flux dominated flows, powered by large amplitude, nonlinear torsional Alfv\'en waves. We examine the non-relativistic MHD nozzle equation in a parabolic shape. The nature of trans-fast magnetosonic flow is similar to the one of transonic solution of Parker's hydrodynamic solar wind; the jet becomes super-escape as well as super-fast magnetosonic at around $\sim 10^{3}\,r_{\rm s}$, while the upstream trans-Alfv\'enic flow speed increases linearly as a function of the distance at $\sim 10^{2}$ - $10^{3}\, r_{\rm s}$. We here point out that this is the first evidence to identify these features in astrophysical jets. We propose that the M87 jet is magnetically accelerated, but thermally confined by the stratified ISM inside the sphere of gravitational influence of the SMBH potential, which may be a norm in AGN jets.