paper

Observational View of Magnetic Fields in Active Galactic Nuclei Jets

arXiv:1701.07997 · doi:10.1017/S1743921317001272

Abstract

According to the currently favored picture, relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are launched in the vicinity of the black hole by magnetic fields extracting energy from the spinning black hole or the accretion disk. In the past decades, various models from shocks to magnetic reconnection have been proposed as the energy dissipation mechanism in the jets. This paper presents a short review on how linear polarization observations can be used to constrain the magnetic field structure in the jets of AGN, and how the observations can be used to constrain the various emission models.

8 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 324, New Frontiers in Black Hole Astrophysics

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