2002/12/16 by J. A. Eilek, Jean Eilek, Philip E. Hardee +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s1387-6473(03)00081-2
published as New Astron.Rev. 47 (2003) 505-507 · 4 pages; to appear in New Astronomy Reviews, in proceedings of the meeting "The Physics of Relativistic Jets in the CHANDRA and XMM Era"
arxiv created 2002/12/16 · openalex publication_date 2003/10/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The wealth of high quality data now available on the M87 jet inspired us to carry out a detailed analysis of the plasma physical conditions in the jet. In a companion paper (Lobanov, Hardee & Eilek, this proceedings) we identify a double-helix structure within the jet, and apply Kelvin-Helmholtz stability analysis to determine the physical state of the jet plasma. In this paper we treat the jet as a test case for in situ particle acceleration. We find that plasma turbulence is likely to exist at levels which can maintain the energy of electrons radiating in the radio to optical range, consistent with the broadband spectrum of the jet.