Abstract
Luminous extragalactic radio jets associated with classical double radio sources often appear to be overpressured with respect to the ambient medium. This overpressuring can be easily explained if the jet is hypersonic. Here we present the results of a hydrodynamical simulation of a jet with an initial Mach number of 150. We find that the hypersonic jet is highly dynamic in nature with varying head velocity and shape. The jet remains well-collimated while the region behind the bow shock is overpressured by a factor of ti 1,600 with respect to the quiescent ambient medium, thus establishing the validity of the ram-pressure confinement scheme.
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Loken, C., Burns, J.O., Clarke, D.A., Norman, M.L. (1993). Numerical simulation of a hypersonic jet. In: Röser, HJ., Meisenheimer, K. (eds) Jets in Extragalactic Radio Sources. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 421. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-57164-7_99
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-57164-7_99
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