Are Quasar Jets Dominated by Poynting Flux?
Marek Sikora1, Mitchell C. Begelman2, Greg Madejski3, and Jean-Pierre Lasota4 1 Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland 2 JILA, Campus Box 440, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA 3 Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA 4 Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, 98bis boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France The formation of relativistic astrophysical jets is presumably mediated by magnetic fields threading accretion disks and central, rapidly rotating objects. As it is accelerated by magnetic stresses, the jet’s kinetic energy flux grows at the expense of its Poynting flux. However, it is unclear how efficient is the conversion from magnetic to kinetic energy and whether there are any observational signatures of this process. We address this issue in the context of jets in quasars. Using data from all spatial scales, we demonstrat
