Efficiency of the centrifugally induced curvature drift instability in AGN winds

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 490, Number 2, November I 2008


Page(s)		487 - 492
Section		Astrophysical processes
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:200809710
Published online		11 September 2008

A&A 490, 487-492 (2008)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:200809710

Efficiency of the centrifugally induced curvature drift instability in AGN winds

Z. Osmanov

E. Kharadze Georgian National Astrophysical Observatory, Kazbegi str. 2a, 0106 Tbilisi, Georgia
e-mail: z.osmanov@astro-ge.org; osmanov@ph.unito.it

Received 4 March 2008 / Accepted 10 June 2008

Abstract
Aims. We investigate the centrifugally driven curvature drift instability to study how field lines twist close to the light cylinder surface of an AGN, through which the free motion of AGN winds can be monitored.
Methods. By studying the dynamics of the relativistic MHD flow close to the light cylinder surface, we derive and solve analytically the dispersion relation of the instability by applying a single particle approach based on the centrifugal acceleration.
Results. Considering the typical values of AGN winds, it is shown that the timescale of the curvature drift instability is far less than the accretion process timescale, indicating that the present instability is very efficient and might strongly influence processes in AGN plasmas.

Key words: instabilities -- magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) -- plasmas -- galaxies: active -- galaxies: nuclei -- acceleration of particles

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