Kinematics of and emission from helically orbiting blobs in a relativistic magnetized jet

TL;DR

This paper develops a general relativistic model of jet variability caused by orbiting blobs in helical motion within magnetized jets near black holes, explaining observed multi-wavelength variability in active galactic nuclei and other jetted sources.

Contribution

It introduces a realistic GR model incorporating magnetic surface geometry and relativistic effects to simulate jet emission and variability, including QPOs and PSD shapes.

Findings

Simulated light curves show increased amplitude (~12%) and phase shifts.

Power spectral density follows a -2 slope, matching observed variability.

QPO timescales range from 1.37 to 130.7 days, consistent with blazar observations.

Abstract

We present a general relativistic (GR) model of jet variability in active galactic nuclei due to orbiting blobs in helical motion along a funnel or cone shaped magnetic surface anchored to the accretion disk near the black hole. Considering a radiation pressure driven flow in the inner region, we find that it stabilizes the flow, yielding Lorentz factors ranging between 1.1 and 7 at small radii for reasonable initial conditions. Assuming these as inputs, simulated light curves (LCs) for the funnel model include Doppler and gravitational shifts, aberration, light bending, and time delay. These LCs are studied for quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) and the power spectral density (PSD) shape and yield an increased amplitude ($\sim$ 12 %); a beamed portion and a systematic phase shift with respect to that from a previous special relativistic model. The results strongly justify implementing a realistic magnetic surface geometry in Schwarzschild geometry to describe effects on emission from orbital features in the jet close to the horizon radius. A power law shaped PSD with a typical slope of $-2$ and QPOs with timescales in the range of $(1.37 - 130.7)$ days consistent with optical variability in Blazars, emerges from the simulations for black hole masses $M_{\bullet} = (0.5 - 5) \times 10^8 M_{\odot}$ and initial Lorentz factors $\gamma_{jet,i} = 2 - 10$. The models presented here can be applied to explain radio, optical, and X-ray variability from a range of jetted sources including active galactic nuclei, X-ray binaries and neutron stars.