Hydromagnetic break-up of bridges and jets into aligned objects

It is shown that a cylindrical plasma column supporting a longitudinal fieldB _z and an azimuthal fieldB has a fastest-growing mode in whichkR ₀1 (k=wave number,R ₀=radius of the column). If we assume that plasma is ejected from a galaxy to form a jet, filament or bridge of length 5 kpc,R ₀0.5 kpc, density 10^–24 gm cm^–3 with a dragged-out field of strengthB _z 10^–5 Gauss (from a parent field 10^–6 Gauss), such a column must eventually fragment by the action of a hydromagnetic instability, breaking up into a number 10 of regularly-spaced condensations. It is, therefore, predicted that features like the M87 jet should show incipient nucleation with 3–10 knots, and that periodically-spaced objects of the type noted by Arp may have resulted from the action of such an instability.