Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Jets and outflows operate across the full cosmic mass scale from young stellar objects (YSOs) and X-ray binaries (XRBs) to active galactic nuclei (AGN), gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and tidal disruption events (TDEs), shaping many time-domain and multi-messenger transients. Key questions concern on how jets are launched, accelerated and collimated; where and how they dissipate energy and accelerate particles; and how they couple to their environments to set electromagnetic counterpart diversity and feedback. Millimeter and sub-millimeter observations uniquely address these questions by tracking the evolving synchrotron turnover for robust calorimetry and Lorentz-factor constraints, providing full-Stokes polarization and Faraday diagnostics close to the jet base, and enabling high-resolution imaging from Galactic ejecta to event-horizon-scale AGN jet bases via global Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). We describe the jet and outflow science enabled by ALMA2040, a next-generation mm/sub-mm interferometer combining an order-of-magnitude sensitivity gain with rapid-response observing, simultaneous multi-band coverage, full-Stokes polarimetry, and integration with global VLBI networks. These capabilities will enable statistically controlled, trigger-driven samples spanning XRB outbursts, early GRB afterglows, protostellar disk winds and jet launching, AGN jet bases, and jetted TDEs, establishing mm/sub-mm astronomy as a cornerstone of time-domain and multi-messenger jet physics in the 2040s and beyond.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Koljonen, Karri I. I., Russell, Thomas D., Jeter, Britton, Rhodes, Lauren, Tetarenko, Alexandra J., Trigo, María Díaz, Hovatta, Talvikki, Bosch-Cabot, Pau, Pandey-Pommier, Mamta, Marino, Alessio, Eijnden, Jakob van den, Nguyen, Dieu D., Del Santo, Melania, Maccarone, Thomas, Ho, Anna Y. Q., Baglio, Maria C., Markoff, Sera, Transient, the ALMA2040, group, Time-Domain Astronomy working
Institutions: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica cosmica di Palermo, National Institute for Astrophysics, Aalto University, McGill University, University of Lethbridge, European Southern Observatory, Université catholique de lyon, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, University of Michigan, Texas Tech University, Cornell University, Brera Astronomical Observatory, University of Cambridge, University of Amsterdam
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222741627