Ravi Pratap Dubey   (India)

dubey @ mpia.de

Dynamical evolution of relativistic jets and particle acceleration

Astrophysical jets are often seen as straight beam with knotty sub-structure ejected out from a compact central region in a variety of astrophysical sources e.g. Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), micro-quasars (MQs)  etc.
However, in some cases they are also observed as bent or curved structure. Although these variations in the structure can be explained due to different dynamical processes at work in these jets, it is not clear whether the observed jet sub-structure is a result of the motion of actual plasma material or some radiation pattern.
I study, through relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic numerical simulations, the role and effects of jet dynamics on the particle acceleration and emission in relativistic jets. Through this, I am interested in disentangling the dynamics of the jet from the radiation. I am also interested in studying various processes that can lead to acceleration of particles in the jet e.g. the diffusive shock acceleration, magnetic reconnection etc.
Further, I am interested in producing synthetic emission signatures from relativistic jets resulting from various cooling processes like synchrotron emission, inverse Compton process etc. Through this, I want to compare the emission produced from the simulations to the actual observations to understand the processes at play in these sources.

Supervisor:    Christian Fendt  (MPIA)