Stochastic particle acceleration by plasma waves in AGN jets
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Univ. of Alabama, Huntsville, AL (United States). Dept. of Physics
The free energy stored in the stressed magnetic fields in AGN jets could be dissipated via generating turbulent plasma waves. The authors review several key wave-particle resonant interactions and point out the importance of a broad wave spectrum. Under several idealized assumptions, they show that the transit-time damping process can accelerate electrons to TeV energies in an AGN jet environment, and present a preliminary calculation on the evolution of plasma wave, electron, and photon distributions. The authors especially emphasize several open questions on particle acceleration by waves, and argue that a plausible scenario is to energize electrons out of the thermal background via transit-time damping and further accelerate them by the parallel propagating right-handed waves.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 543637
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-97-2791; CONF-9705181-; ON: DE98000598; TRN: 98:000962
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Conference on relativistic jets in AGNs, Cracow (Poland), 26-30 May 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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