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R. D. Blandford, M. Lyutikov (KIPAC, Stanford)
There is evidence for collimated, relativistic outflows associated with active galactic nuclei, gamma ray bursts, pulsar wind nebulae and galactic X-ray binaries. The hypothesis that the observed jets are better described as sites of ohmic dissipation in large scale electrical circuits than as flows is developed and the relationship to an MHD description is elucidated. The dissipation takes the form of particle acceleration followed by synchrotron and inverse Compton emission and various mechanisms for bringing this about are discussed. The model is then specialized to the above four types of source and observable consequences are discussed. These include velocity, spectral index and Faraday rotation gradients, high linear polarization and evolutionary effects. Swift, high frequency VLBI, GLAST and TeV telescopes are all well-suited to address these predictions.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.