Efficiency of the centrifugally induced curvature drift instability in AGN winds

Abstract

For studying how the field lines are twisting nearby the light cylinder surface, which provides the free motion of AGN winds through the mentioned area, the investigation of the centrifugally driven curvature drift instability is presented. Studying the dynamics of the relativistic MHD flow close to the light cylinder surface, by applying a single particle approach based on the centrifugal acceleration, the dispersion relation of the instability is derived and analytically solved. Considering the typical values of AGN winds, it is shown that the time scale of the curvature drift instability is much less than the accretion process time scale, indicating that the present instability is very efficient and might strongly influence processes in AGN plasmas.