Abstract
Several versions of the shock-in-jet model of the blazars' variability have been proposed in recent years. This family of models resorts to the interaction between a relativistic shock and a feature in the parsec-scale jet associated to an AGN in order to explain the origin of the rapid variability recently observed in many extragalactic radio sources. The nature of the involved features varies from one particular model to another. Here I discuss a possible origin for this variety of subparsec-sized features in the frame of the two-fluid model of extragalactic jets. Macroscopic Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities are shown to be capable of producing the required plurality of morphologies in the innermost part of the beams, in such a way that the different models have particular ranges of applicability according to the differencies in the parameters of the flows.
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Romero, G.E. Fine-scale structure in relativistic jets and rapid variability in blazars. Astrophys Space Sci 234, 49–55 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00627281
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00627281