Like a candle in the wind: Microquasars and their interaction with the circum-binary medium

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。相对论喷流是超热磁化等离子体的准直光束，以非常接近光速的速度从黑洞和中子星射出。微类星体是x射线双星（在正常恒星轨道上运行的中子星或黑洞），它们会发射出这样的相对论性喷流，对研究喷流和黑洞物理学有很大的希望。测量重要射流参数的最佳方法之一是研究它们与环境的相互作用。本项目将研究微类星体喷流与环二进制介质的相互作用，以了解风和辐射阻力对喷流运动学和稳定性的影响，并建立自洽的微类星体喷流射电和高能发射模型。这将是第一次对喷流在恒星风和辐射场中传播的三维模拟，从非相对论性水力、相对论性水力和非相对论性磁流体动力学（MHD）模拟开始。在FLASH代码中添加子网格粒子传输模块将跟踪相对论性粒子的种群，并允许计算射流中的发射和吸收以及辐射阻力对射流的影响。湍流扩散算法将允许微观和宏观混合的研究。最后，结果将用于计算模拟喷流的TeV伽马射线和中微子通量。这项工作包括研究生培训。研究结果还将用于加强该大学的公共推广计划。，讲座将在项目网站上存档，供专业人士和普通观众观看。所有开发的分析和模拟工具都将通过同一网站公开发布，任何增强功能都将被纳入研究中使用的公开可用的FLASH代码中。

AST-0908690HeinzThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Relativistic jets are collimated beams of ultra-hot, magnetized plasma, shooting away at very close to the speed of light from black holes and neutron stars. Microquasars are X-ray binaries (neutron stars or black holes in orbit around a normal star) that fire off such relativistic jets, and hold great promise for new insight into jet and black hole physics. One of the best ways to measure important jet parameters is to study their interaction with the environment they must run into. This project will investigate the interaction of microquasar jets with the circum-binary medium in order to understand the effects of winds and radiation drag on the kinematics and stability of jets, and to construct self-consistent models of radio and high-energy emission from microquasar jets. These will be the first three-dimensional simulations of jets propagating through stellar winds and radiation fields, starting with non-relativistic hydro, relativistic hydro, and non-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. Adding a sub-grid particle transport module to the FLASH code will track populations of relativistic particles and allow calculation of emission and absorption within the jet and the effects of radiation drag on the jet. A turbulent diffusion algorithm will permit study of both microscopic and macroscopic mixing. Finally, the results will be used to calculate the predicted TeV gamma-ray and neutrino flux for the simulated jets.The work includes graduate student training. Results will also be used to enhance the public outreach program at the university?s Space Place, and lectures will be archived for both professional and general audiences at the project web-site. All analysis and simulation tools developed will be publicly released through the same web-site, and any enhancements created will be incorporated in the publicly available FLASH code used in the research.