Simulating the dynamics and non-thermal emission of relativistic magnetised jets I. Dynamics

TL;DR

This study uses magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to explore how different MHD instabilities influence the dynamics and morphology of relativistic, magnetized jets from supermassive black holes over tens of kiloparsecs.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of Kelvin-Helmholtz and kink instabilities on jet stability, structure, and evolution, depending on jet power and magnetization.

Findings

Low power jets are susceptible to both KH and kink instabilities.

Higher power jets remain generally stable against these instabilities.

Instabilities influence jet deceleration, decollimation, and turbulence in the cocoon.

Abstract

We have performed magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of relativistic jets from supermassive blackholes over a few tens of kpc for a range of jet parameters. One of the primary aims were to investigate the effect of different MHD instabilities on the jet dynamics and their dependence on the choice of jet parameters. We find that two dominant MHD instabilities affect the dynamics of the jet, small scale Kelvin- Helmholtz (KH) modes and large scale kink modes, whose evolution depend on internal jet parameters like the Lorentz factor, the ratio of the density and pressure to the external medium and the magnetisation and hence consequently on the jet power. Low power jets are susceptible to both instabilities, kink modes for jets with higher central magnetic field and KH modes for lower magnetisation. Moderate power jets do not show appreciable growth of kink modes, but KH modes develop for lower magnetisation. Higher power jets are generally stable to both instabilities. Such instabilities decelerate and decollimate the jet while inducing turbulence in the cocoon, with consequences on the magnetic field structure. We model the dynamics of the jets following a generalised treatment of the Begelman-Cioffi relations which we present here. We find that the dynamics of stable jets match well with simplified analytic models of expansion of non self-similar FRII jets, whereas jets with prominent MHD instabilities show a nearly self-similar evolution of the morphology as the energy is more evenly distributed between the jet head and the cocoon.