The different flavors of extragalactic jets: Magnetized relativistic flows

Abstract

We performed three-dimensional numerical simulations of magnetized relativistic jets propagating in a uniform density environment in order to study the effect of the entrainment and the consequent deceleration, extending a previous work in which magnetic effects were not present. As in previous papers, our aim is to understand the connection between the jet properties and the resulting Fanaroff-Riley classification. We considered jets with different low densities, and therefore low power, and different magnetizations. We find that lower magnetization jets effectively decelerate to sub-relativistic velocities and may then result in an FR I morphology on larger scales. Conversely, in the higher magnetization cases, the entrainment and consequent deceleration are substantially reduced.