On the role of the curvature drift instability in the dynamics of electrons in active galactic nuclei

Z. Osmanov

Published 2009-07-24, updated 2013-08-06Version 5

We study the influence of the centrifugally driven curvature drift instability (CDI) on the dynamics of relativistic electrons in the magnetospheres of active galactic nuclei (AGN). We generalize our previous work by considering relativistic particles with different initial phases. Considering the Euler, continuity, and induction equations, by taking into account the resonant conditions, we derive the growth rate of the CDI. We show that due to the centrifugal effects, the rotational energy is efficiently pumped directly into the drift modes, that leads to the generation of a toroidal component of the magnetic field. As a result, the magnetic field lines transform into such a configuration when particles do not experience any forces and since the instability is centrifugally driven, at this stage the CDI is suspended.