The role of macroscopic and microscopic jet instabilities

Abstract

Relativistic jets, be they Poynting flux or kinetic flux dominated, are current driven (CD) and/or Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) velocity shear driven unstable. These macroscopic MHD instabilities may be responsible for some of the observed larger scale twisted jet structures and typically do not disrupt jets on less than kiloparsec scales. Here I review our understanding of the jet properties that will lead to the observed relative stability of astrophysical jets. In addition, I review the progress made on the microscopic scale plasma instabilities in shocks and velocity shears that may lead to magnetic field generation and that does lead to the particle acceleration required to produce the observed emission from radio wavelengths to TeV energies. Finally, I discuss these instabilities in the context of the jet in M87. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013.