Relativistic reconfinement shocks

by Krzysztof Nalewajko (CAMK, Warsaw, Poland)

Thursday 14 May 2009, 13:15 → 14:30 Europe/Stockholm

Nordita seminar room

Reconfinement shocks are common structures that form in lowly magnetized jets interacting with external medium, and as such play an important role in dynamics and radiative properties of jets present in AGNs, microquasars and GRBs. In AGNs they are thought to form on a scale of several parsecs and may correspond to the location of the 'blazar zone' in the most luminous quasars. On larger scales they may form stationary knots, such as HST-1 in the jet of M87. In our recent studies employing semi-analytical calculations, we tested the accuracy of formulae linking the physical parameters with the shock geometry, calculated the energy dissipation efficiency and studied the polarization properties of associated synchrotron emission.

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