Polarization and QPOs from jets in black hole systems

Abstract

The historical observations of polarized jet emission for Blazars are reviewed and previous models are discussed. Motivated by this, a model for polarization of both steady and transient behavior using a helical magnetic field is presented. The variety of observed correlations and anti-correlations between the electric polarization angle, the degree of polarization and optical flux can be explained by this model. In addition, the phenomena of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPO) behavior seen in jets in X-ray Binaries (XRBs) is also explained by a model based on helical trajectories of emitting blobs and the resulting time scales and harmonics of the QPO are derived. In both the models, the input parameters are the inclination angle, the Lorentz factor of the jet and pitch angle of the magnetic helix.