Astrophysical jets are outflows of ionized matter emitted as extended beams from celestial objects such as black holes, neutron stars, and pulsars.

New Delhi: A team of scientists at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), said on Monday that they have discovered the effect of plasma composition on the dynamics of astrophysical jets of celestial bodies.

Astrophysical jets are outflows of ionized matter emitted as extended beams from celestial objects such as black holes, neutron stars, and pulsars.

The scientists showed that a change in the plasma composition changes the propagation velocity of the jets even if the initial parameters of the jets remain the same.

“Jets composed of electrons and positrons were found to be the least, contrary to expectations, compared to jets composed of protons. Protons are about two thousand times more abundant than electrons or positrons,” the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement.

Despite years of research, it is not known what kind of matter astrophysical jets are made of – whether they are made of bare electrons or protons, or even positively charged electrons called positrons.

Knowing the composition of the jet is vital because it allows scientists to pinpoint the physical processes at work near black holes and neutron stars.

The research, led by Raj Kishore Joshi and Dr Indranil Chattopadhyay from ARIES, has been published in the Astrophysical Journal. The authors Dr. Chattopadhyay upgraded a previously developed numerical simulation code and used the aforementioned equation of state to study the dynamics of an astrophysics jet composed of a mixture of electrons, positrons (positively charged electrons) and protons.