Synthetic jets - from models to observations and back

Abstract

The main purpose of numerical simulations is to study the nature of physical processes at work in astrophysical objects. In general it is very difficult to simulate and match a particular object pixel by pixel, both due to the complex microphysics involved and due to the only insufficiently known initial and boundary conditions as imposed by the environment. Still, careful modelling and inversion of observations can unveil the structure of particular sources. We discuss two examples: (1) constraining the velocity field for YSO jets through inversion of line profiles, and (2) inferring the magnetic field topology for AGN jets from synchrotron emission maps.