Magnetized, Relativistic Jets

Extragalactic relativistic jets are composed by charged particles and magnetic fields, as inferred from the synchrotron emission that we receive from them. The Larmor radii of the particles propagating along the magnetic field are much smaller than the scales of the problem, providing the necessary coherence to the system to treat is as a flow. We can thus study them using relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. As a first step, we have studied the structure of steady-state configurations of jets by using numerical simulations. We have used a helical field configuration and have changed different relevant parameters that control the way in which the energy flux is distributed in jets (namely, the proportion of the energy flux carried by internal, kinetic or magnetic energy). Our results show significant differences among the different kinds of jets. Finally, we also report on results based on synthetic maps of our simulated jets.