21 research outputs found
Effects of cooling on the propagation of magnetized jets
We present multidimensional simulations of magnetized radiative jets appropriate to young stellar objects (YSOs). Magnetized jets subject to collisionally excited radiative losses have not, as yet, received extensive scrutiny. The purpose of this Letter is to articulate the propagation dynamics of radiative MHD jets in the context of the extensive jet literature. Most importantly, we look for morphological and kinematic diagnostics that may distinguish hydrodynamic protostellar jets from their magnetically dominated cousins. Our simulations are axisymmetric (2.5 dimensions). A toroidal (B-phi) field geometry is used. Our models have high sonic Mach numbers (M-f approximate to 10) but lower fast-mode Mach number (M-f approximate to 5). This is approximately the case for jets formed via disk-wind or X-wind models-currently the consensus choice for launching and collimating YSO jets. Time-dependent radiative losses are included via a coronal cooling curve. Our results demonstrate that the morphology and propagation characteristics of strongly magnetized radiative jets can differ significantly from jets with weak fields. In particular, the formation of nose cones via postshock hoop stresses leads to narrow bow shocks and enhanced bow shock speeds. In addition, the hoop stresses produce strong shocks in the jet beam, which contrasts with the relatively unperturbed beam in radiative hydrodynamic jets. Our simulations show that pinch modes produced by magnetic tension can strongly affect magnetized protostellar jets. These differences may be useful in observational studies designed to distinguish between competing jet collimation scenariosopen515
MHD Models of Axisymmetric Protostellar Jets
We present the results of a series of axisymmetric time-dependent
magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the propagation of cooling, overdense
jets, motivated by the properties of outflows associated with young stellar
objects. A variety of initial field strengths and configurations are explored
for both steady and time-variable (pulsed) jets. Even apparently weak magnetic
fields with strengths B < 60 micro-G in the pre-shocked jet beam can have a
significant effect on the dynamics, for example by altering the density, width,
and fragmentation of thin shells formed by cooling gas. A linear analysis
predicts that axisymmetric pinch modes of the MHD Kelvin-Helmholtz instability
should grow only slowly for the highly supermagnetosonic jets studied here; we
find no evidence for them in our simulations. Some of our models appear
unstable to current-driven pinch modes, however the resulting pressure and
density variations induced in the jet beam are not large, making this mechanism
an unlikely source of emission knots in the jet beam. In the case of pulsed
jets, radial hoop stresses confine shocked jet material in the pulses to the
axis, resulting in a higher density in the pulses in comparison to purely
hydrodynamic models.Comment: 28 pages, 16 figures, accepted by Ap.
GEMINGA'S SOFT X-RAY EMISSION AND THE STRUCTURE OF ITS SURFACE
We present a model to explain the decrease in the amplitude of the pulse
profile with increasing energy observed in Geminga's soft X-ray surface thermal
emission. We assume the presence of plates surrounded by a surface with very
distinct physical properties: these two regions emit spectra of very distinct
shapes which present a crossover, the warm plates emitting a softer spectrum
than the colder surrounding surface. The strongly pulsed emission from the
plates dominates at low energy while the surroundings emission dominates at
high energy, producing naturally a strong decrease in the pulsed fraction. In
our illustrative example the plates are assumed to be magnetized while the rest
of the surface is field free.
This plate structure may be seen as a schematic representation of a
continuous but very nonuniform distribution of the surface magnetic field or as
a quasi realistic structure induced by past tectonic activity on Geminga.Comment: 10 pages, AASTeX latex, + 3 figures (compressed 7 uuencoded).
Submitted to Ap. J. Let
Magnetic Field Effects on the Head Structure of Protostellar Jets
We present the results of 3-D SPMHD numerical simulations of
supermagnetosonic, overdense, radiatively cooling jets. Two initial magnetic
configurations are considered: (i) a helical and (ii) a longitudinal field. We
find that magnetic fields have important effects on the dynamics and structure
of radiative cooling jets, especially at the head. The presence of a helical
field suppresses the formation of the clumpy structure which is found to
develop at the head of purely hydrodynamical jets. On the other hand, a cooling
jet embedded in a longitudinal magnetic field retains clumpy morphology at its
head. This fragmented structure resembles the knotty pattern commonly observed
in HH objects behind the bow shocks of HH jets. This suggests that a strong
(equipartition) helical magnetic field configuration is ruled out at the jet
head. Therefore, if strong magnetic fields are present, they are probably
predominantly longitudinal in those regions. In both magnetic configurations,
we find that the confining pressure of the cocoon is able to excite
short-wavelength MHD K-H pinch modes that drive low-amplitude internal shocks
along the beam. These shocks are not strong however, and it likely that they
could only play a secondary role in the formation of the bright knots observed
in HH jets.Comment: 14 pages, 2 Gif figures, uses aasms4.sty. Also available on the web
page http://www.iagusp.usp.br/preprints/preprint.html. To appear in The
Astrophysical Journal Letter
PSR 0943+10: a bare strange star?
Recent work by Rankin & Deshpande strongly suggests that there exist strong
``micro-storms'' rotating around the magnetic axis of the 1.1s pulsar PSR
0943+10. Such a feature hints that most probably the large-voltage vacuum gap
proposed by Ruderman & Sutherland (RS) does exist in the pulsar polar cap.
However, there are severe arguments against the formation of the RS-type gap in
pulsars, since the binding energies of both the Fe ions and the electrons in a
neutron star's surface layer is too small to prevent thermionic ejection of the
particles from the surface. Here we propose that PSR 0943+10 (probably also
most of the other ``drifting'' pulsars) might be bare strange stars rather than
normal neutron stars, in which the ``binding energy'' at the surface is merely
infinity either for the case of ``pulsar'' or ``anti-pulsar''. It is further
proposed that identifying a drifting pulsar as an anti-pulsar is the key
criterion to distinguish strange stars from neutron stars.Comment: 4 pages, no figures, LaTeX, accepted 1999 July 9 by ApJ Letter
Magnetic Field Effects on the Structure and Evolution of Overdense Radiatively Cooling Jets
We investigate the effect of magnetic fields on the propagation dynamics and
morphology of overdense, radiatively cooling, supermagnetosonic jets, with the
help of fully three-dimensional SPMHD simulations. Evaluated for a set of
parameters which are mainly suitable for protostellar jets (with density ratios
between the jet and the ambient medium 3-10, and ambient Mach number ~ 24),
these simulations are also compared with baseline non-magnetic and adiabatic
calculations. We find that, after amplification by compression and
re-orientation in nonparallel shocks at the working surface, the magnetic field
that is carried backward with the shocked gas into the cocoon improves the jet
collimation relative to the purely hydrodynamic (HD) systems. Low-amplitude,
approximately equally spaced internal shocks (which are absent in the HD
systems) are produced by MHD K-H reflection pinch modes. The longitudinal field
geometry also excites non-axisymmetric helical modes which cause some beam
wiggling. The strength and amount of these modes are, however, reduced (by ~
twice) in the presence of radiative cooling relative to the adiabatic cases.
Besides, a large density ratio between the jet and the ambient medium also
reduces, in general, the number of the internal shocks. As a consequence, the
weakness of the induced internal shocks makes it doubtful that the magnetic
pinches could produce by themselves the bright knots observed in the overdense,
radiatively cooling protostellar jets.Comment: To appear in ApJ; 36 pages + 16 (gif) figures. PostScript files of
figures are available at http://www.iagusp.usp.br/preprints/preprint.htm
Vacuum gaps in pulsars and PSR J2144-3933
In this paper we revisit the radio pulsar death line problem within the
framework of curvature radiation and/or inverse compton scattering induced
vacuum gap model above neutron star polar caps. Our special interest is in the
recently detected pulsar PSR J2144-3933 with extremal period 8.5 seconds, which
lies far beyond conventional death lines. We argue, that formation of vacuum
gaps requires a complicated multipolar surface magnetic field, with a strenght
much higher than the surface dipolar component , and radii of
curvature much smaller than the neutron star radius cm.
Such a multipolar surface field is also consistent with death lines including
the extremal pulsar PSR J2144-3933. Since vacuum gap models produce sparks, our
paper naturally supports the spark related models of subpulse drift phenomenon
as well as to the spark associated models of coherent pulsar radio emission.Comment: 19 pages, 1 postscript figure, Latex, uses aastex.st
Three-dimensional MHD simulations of Radiatively cooling, Pulsed Jets
(Abridged) We here investigate, by means of fully 3-D Smoothed Particle
Magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations, the effects of magnetic fields on
overdense, radiatively cooling, pulsed jets, using different initial magnetic
field topologies and strengths (G-0). The relative
differences that have been previously detected in 2-D simulations involving
distinct magnetic field configurations are diminished in the 3-D flows. While
the presence of toroidal magnetic components can modify the morphology close to
the jet head inhibiting its fragmentation in the early jet evolution, as
previously reported in the literature, the impact of the pulsed-induced
internal knots causes the appearance of a complex morphology at the jet head
(as required by the observations of H-H jets) even in the MHD jet models with
toroidal components. The detailed structure and emission properties of the
internal working surfaces can be also significantly altered by the presence of
magnetic fields. The increase of the magnetic field strength improves the jet
collimation, and amplifies the density (by factors up to 1.4, and 4) and the
H\alpha\beta \simeq 1-0.1I_{[SII]}}/I_{H}\alpha}\beta \simeq 0.1$ case.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures (see higher resolution figures in:
http://www.iagusp.usp.br/~dalpino/mhd-jets/apj0301.tar.gz), ApJ in pres
Atomic calculation for the atmospheres of strongly-magnetized neutron stars
Complete modeling of radiative transfer in neutron star atmospheres is in
progress, taking into account the anisotropy induced by magnetic fields,
non-ideal effects and general relativity. As part of our modeling, we present a
novel atomic calculation method producing an extensive atomic data set
including energy values and oscillator strengths in the so-called Landau regime
( G). Conventional atmosphere models for B=0 are not
applicable to typical field strengths of cooling neutron stars ( G), since an atom no longer keeps its spherical shape. The
elemental composition and the configuration of the magnetic field in the
atmosphere are presently unknown, so that atomic data must be produced for
ground and excited states of several ions as a function of magnetic field. To
accomplish this efficiently, we minimized the iterations in the Hartree
equation and treated exchange terms and higher Landau states by perturbation
methods. This method has the effect of reducing the computation time
significantly. Inclusion of higher Landau states gives us much more accurate
data for inner orbitals unlike other methods based on the adiabatic
approximation. While existing atomic data in the Landau regime are available
only for low atoms, our method can be used in elements up to Fe with
sufficient accuracy to be of use for spectroscopic missions such as {\it
Chandra}, {\it XMM-Newton} and next-generation X-ray telescopes.Comment: 19 pages, AASTeX, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Ap