| Full text | |
| Author(s): |
Kadowaki, Luis H. S.
[1]
;
de Gouveia Dal Pino, Elisabete M.
[1]
;
Medina-Torrejon, Tania E.
[2]
;
Mizuno, Yosuke
[3, 4, 5]
;
Kushwaha, Pankaj
[6]
Total Authors: 5
|
| Affiliation: | [1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Astron Geofis & Ciencias Atmosfer, Dept Astron, 1226 Matao St, BR-05508090 Sao Paulo - Brazil
[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Fis, Sao Paulo - Brazil
[3] Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Sch Phys & Astron, Shanghai 200240 - Peoples R China
[4] Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Tsung Dao Lee Inst, Shanghai 200240 - Peoples R China
[5] Goethe Univ, Inst Theoret Phys, D-60438 Frankfurt - Germany
[6] Aryabhatta Res Inst Observ Sci ARIES, Manora Peak 263001, Nainital - India
Total Affiliations: 6
|
| Document type: | Journal article |
| Source: | ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL; v. 912, n. 2 MAY 2021. |
| Web of Science Citations: | 0 |
| Abstract | |
The ubiquitous relativistic jet phenomena associated with black holes play a major role in high and very-high-energy (VHE) astrophysics. In particular, observations have demonstrated that blazars show VHE emission with time variability from days to minutes (in the gigaelectronvolt and teraelectronvolt bands), implying very compact emission regions. The real mechanism of the particle acceleration process responsible for this emission is still being debated, but magnetic reconnection has lately been discussed as a strong potential candidate. In this work, we present the results of three-dimensional special relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the development of reconnection events driven by turbulence induced by current-driven kink instability along a relativistic jet. We have performed a systematic identification of all reconnection regions in the system, characterizing their local magnetic field topology and quantifying the reconnection rates. We obtained average rates of 0.051 +/- 0.026 (in units of Alfven speed), which are comparable to the predictions of the theory of turbulence-induced fast reconnection. A detailed statistical analysis also demonstrated that the fast reconnection events follow a log-normal distribution, which is a signature of its turbulent origin. To probe the robustness of our method, we have applied our results to the blazar Mrk 421. Building a synthetic light curve from the integrated magnetic reconnection power, we evaluated the time variability from a power spectral density analysis, obtaining good agreement with observations in the gigaelectronvolt band. This suggests that turbulent fast magnetic reconnection can be a possible process behind the high-energy emission variability phenomena observed in blazars. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 09/54006-4 - A computer cluster for the Astronomy Department of the University of São Paulo Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences and for the Cruzeiro do Sul University Astrophysics Center |
| Grantee: | Elisabete Maria de Gouveia Dal Pino |
| Support Opportunities: | Multi-user Equipment Program |
| FAPESP's process: | 13/10559-5 - Investigation of high energy and plasma astrophysics phenomena: theory, numerical simulations, observations, and instrument development for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) |
| Grantee: | Elisabete Maria de Gouveia Dal Pino |
| Support Opportunities: | Special Projects |
| FAPESP's process: | 16/12320-8 - Numerical study of magnetic reconnection around black hole |
| Grantee: | Luis Henrique Sinki Kadowaki |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral |