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| Paper: |
Probing the Exhaust System of the Most Powerful Engines with VSOP-2 |
| Volume: |
402, Approaching Micro-Arcsecond Resolution with VSOP-2: Astrophysics and Technologies |
| Page: |
342 |
| Authors: |
Meier, D. |
| Abstract: |
I review the current magneto-hydrodynamic mechanisms for the production and propagation of relativistic jets from accreting black holes. There has been quite a bit of progress recently in describing the processes that launch, collimate, and ultimately accelerate jets to their final relativistic speeds. VSOP2 should be able to probe much of this collimation and acceleration region. There also has been a lot of progress on how magnetized jets propagate through the initial few parsecs of interstellar medium in radio galaxies and quasars that can be observed directly. Finally, there has been a bit of progress in understanding how the jet engine very near the black hole ultimately relates to the accretion power plant that supplies its energy, although it is still unknown exactly how some types of black hole jets tie directly into the accretion flow. While VSOP2 will not probe this region directly, it may be able to constrain certain theoretical models of these processes.
There may be some surprises in store for us, and we should be ready for them when the data begins coming in. |
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