Related papers: Charge-starved, relativistic jets and blazar varia…
Accreting black holes produce powerful relativistic plasma jets which emit radiation across all observable wavelengths but the details of the initial acceleration and confinement of the jet are uncertain. We apply an innovative new model…
Blazars show variability on timescales ranging from minutes to years, the former being comparable to and in some cases even shorter than the light-crossing time of the central black hole. The observed gamma-ray lightcurves can be described…
Black-hole driven relativistic astrophysical jets, such as blazars and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), are powerful sources of electromagnetic radiation. Their emission is powered by some energy dissipation and particle acceleration mechanism…
Relativistic plasma jets are observed in many accreting black holes. According to theory, coiled magnetic fields close to the black hole accelerate and collimate the plasma, leading to a jet being launched. Isolating emission from this…
Relativistic jets are one of the most powerful manifestations of the release of energy related to the supermassive black holes at the centre of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Their emission is observed across the entire electromagnetic…
Relativistic jets from supermassive black holes are among the most powerful and luminous astrophysical systems in Universe. We propose that the open magnetic field lines through the black hole, which drive a strongly magnetized jet, may…
The generation of relativistic jets in active sources such as blazars is a complex problem with many aspects, most of them still not fully understood. Relativistic jets are likely produced by the accretion of matter and magnetic fields onto…
A simple look at the steady high-energy Universe reveals a clear correlation with outflows generated around compact objects (winds and jets). In the case of relativistic jets, they are thought to be produced as a consequence of the…
We report the discovery of fast variability of gamma-ray flares from blazar OJ 287. This blazar is known to be powered by binary system of supermassive black holes. The observed variability time scale T_var < 3-10 hr is much shorter than…
We discuss the implications of rapid (few-minute) variability in the TeV flux of blazars, which has been observed recently with the HESS and MAGIC telescopes. The variability timescales seen in PKS 2155-304 and Mrk 501 are much shorter than…
The origin of the high-energy emission in astrophysical jets from black holes is a highly debated issue. This is particularly true for jets from supermassive black holes that are among the most powerful particle accelerators in the…
We have not identified for sure what is the mechanism launching, accelerating and collimating relativistic jets. The two most likely possibilities are the gravitational energy of the accreting matter or the rotational energy of a spinning…
We investigate the dissipation of the bulk kinetic energy of a relativistic jet at different distances from the central power--house and analyse in detail how the dissipated energy is radiated away. We assume that the location of the…
I review recent progress in the theory of relativistic jet production, with special emphasis on unifying black hole sources of stellar and supermassive size. Observations of both classes of objects, as well as theoretical considerations,…
Relativistic jets, or highly collimated and fast-moving outflows, are endemic to many astrophysical phenomena. The jets produced by gamma-ray bursts and tidal disruption events are accompanied by the accretion of material onto a black hole…
Blazars are a rare class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) with relativistic jets pointing towards the observer. Jets are thought to be launched as Poynting-flux dominated outflows that accelerate to relativistic speeds at the expense of the…
A black hole can launch a powerful relativistic jet after it tidally disrupts a star. If this jet fortuitously aligns with our line of sight, the overall brightness is Doppler boosted by several orders of magnitude. Consequently, such…
With their jet pointing towards us, blazars are ideal tools to study the physics and structure of extragalactic jets. Their powerful jets are cosmic particle accelerators and are alleged to be one of the production sites of the high-energy…
Advances in the capabilities of X-ray, gamma-ray and TeV telescopes have brought new information on the physics of relativistic jets, which are responsible for the blazar "phenomenon". In particular the broad band sensitivity of the…
The current understanding of the formation of powerful bi-directional jets in systems such as radio galaxies and quasars is that the process involves a supermassive black hole that is being fed with magnetized gas through an orbiting…