Particle Acceleration by Relativistic Magnetic Reconnection Driven by Kink Instability Turbulence in Poynting Flux–Dominated Jets

Particle acceleration in magnetized relativistic jets still puzzles theorists. In this work, we investigate the acceleration of particles injected into a three-dimensional relativistic magnetohydrodynamical jet subject to current-driven kink (CDK) instability. We find that, once turbulence driven by CDK fully develops, achieving a nearly stationary state, the amplitude of excited wiggles along the jet spine attains maximum growth, causing disruption of the magnetic field lines and the formation of several sites of fast reconnection. Low-energy protons injected into the jet at this state experience exponential acceleration, mostly in directions parallel to the local magnetic field, up to maximum energies $E\sim {10}^{16}$ eV for $B\sim 0.1$ G and $E\sim {10}^{18}$ eV for $B\sim 10$ G. The Larmor radius of the particles attaining these energies corresponds to the size of the acceleration region (∼the diameter of the perturbed jet). There is a clear association of the accelerated particles with regions of fast reconnection. In the early nonlinear growth stage of the CDK, when there are no sites of fast reconnection yet, injected particles with initially much larger energy are accelerated by magnetic curvature drift. We have also obtained the acceleration time due to reconnection with a dependence on the particles' energy, $t_A\propto E^{0.1}$. The energy spectrum of the accelerated particles develops a power-law index $p$ ∼ −1.2 in the beginning, in agreement with earlier works. Our results provide a multidimensional framework for exploring this process in real systems and explain their emission patterns, especially at very high energies, and associated neutrino emission recently detected in some blazars.