Physics of Relativistic Jets in Blazars
F.Takahara
Abstract
Gamma-ray emission from blazars provides us important
diagnostics on the size and beaming factor of the emitting region
as well as the energy densities of magnetic field, relativistic
electrons and various radiation components.
Observations suggest that relativistic jets are kinetic power
dominated and are composed mainly of electron-positron pairs.
I show that particle acceleration in shock waves conforms very well
with observations. I also propose a scenario of the formation and bulk
acceleration of such jets with particle acceleration by shocks and
discuss various theoretical problems with this scenario such as
pair annihilation and radiation drag.
File translated from TEX by TTH, version 2.32.
On 16 Jul 1999, 09:19.