Polarization Signatures of Kink Instabilities in the Blazar Emission Region from Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations

Abstract

Kink instabilities are likely to occur in the current-carrying magnetized plasma jets. Recent observations of the blazar radiation and polarization signatures suggest that the blazar emission region may be considerably magnetized. While the kink instability has been studied with first-principle magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, the corresponding time-dependent radiation and polarization signatures have not been investigated. In this paper, we perform comprehensive polarization-dependent radiation modeling of the kink instability in the blazar emission region based on relativistic MHD (RMHD) simulations. We find that the kink instability may give rise to strong flares with polarization angle (PA) swings or weak flares with polarization fluctuations, depending on the initial magnetic topology and magnetization. These findings are consistent with observations. Compared with the shock model, the kink model generates polarization signatures that are in better agreement with the general polarization observations. Therefore, we suggest that kink instabilities may widely exist in the jet environment, and provide an efficient way to convert the magnetic energy and produce multiwavelength flares and polarization variations.

Accepted for Publication in The Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (15)

• Particle acceleration in relativistic collisionless shocks: Fermi process at last?
• Formation of Hard Power-laws in the Energetic Particle Spectra Resulting from Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection
• A change in the optical polarization associated with a gamma-ray flare in the blazar 3C 279
• A hadronic origin for ultra-high-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects
• Rapid Variability of Blazar 3C 279 during Flaring States in 2013-2014 with Joint Fermi-LAT, NuSTAR, Swift, and Ground-Based Multi-wavelength Observations
• Photohadronic origin of $\gamma$-ray BL Lac emission: implications for IceCube neutrinos
• 3D Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Current-Driven Instability. I. Instability of a static column
• Polarization Swings Reveal Magnetic Energy Dissipation in Blazars
• A multi-zone model for simulating the high energy variability of TeV blazars
• RoboPol: Do optical polarization rotations occur in all blazars?
• Time Dependent Hadronic Modeling of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars
• Radiation and Polarization Signatures of 3D Multi-zone Time-dependent Hadronic Blazar Model
• Short Timescale Photometric and Polarimetric Behavior of two BL Lacertae Type Objects
• Modeling the Spectral Energy Distribution and Variability of 3C 66A during the WEBT campaign of 2003 -- 2004
• Magnetic Field Amplification and Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Magnetic Energy Release, Plasma Dynamics, and Particle Acceleration during Relativistic Turbulent Magnetic Reconnection
• Kink Instabilities In Relativistic Jets Can Drive Quasi-Periodic Radiation Signatures
• Kink-driven magnetic reconnection in relativistic jets: consequences for X-ray polarimetry of BL Lacs
• Two Flares with One Shock: the Interesting Case of 3C 454.3
• Probing the Emission Mechanism and Magnetic Field of Neutrino Blazars with Multi-Wavelength Polarization Signatures
• Multiwavelength variability and correlation studies of Mrk 421 during historically low X-ray and $\gamma$-ray activity in 2015$-$2016
• A ring accelerator? Unusual jet dynamics in the IceCube candidate PKS 1502+106
• Radiation Signatures From Striped Blazar Jet
• Probing shock acceleration in BL Lac jets through X-ray polarimetry: the time-dependent view
• A Model of Polarisation Rotations in Blazars from Kink Instabilities in Relativistic Jets
• Numerical Analysis of Long-term Variability of AGN Jets through RMHD Simulations
• First-Principle Prediction of X-ray Polarization from Magnetic Reconnection in High-Frequency BL Lacs
• High optical to X-ray polarization ratio reveals Compton scattering in BL Lacertae's jet
• The observability of plasmoid-powered $\gamma$-ray flares with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
• Magnetic Energy Conversion in MHD: Curvature Relaxation and Perpendicular Expansion of Magnetic Fields
• Testing particle acceleration in blazar jets with continuous high-cadence optical polarization observations
• A numerical study on the role of instabilities on multi-wavelength emission signatures of blazar jets