Magnetic reconnection: flares and coronal heating in active galactic nuclei |
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| Authors: | T Di Matteo |
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| Institution: | Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA |
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| Abstract: | A magnetically structured accretion disc corona, generated by buoyancy instability in the disc, can account for observations of flare-like events in active galactic nuclei. We examine how Petschek magnetic reconnection, associated with MHD turbulence, can result in a violent release of energy and heat the magnetically closed regions of the corona up to canonical X-ray emitting temperatures. X-ray magnetic flares, the after effect of the energy released in slow shocks, can account for the bulk of the X-ray luminosity from Seyfert galaxies and consistently explain the observed short-time-scale variability. |
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| Keywords: | accretion accretion discs magnetic fields MHD galaxies: active |
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