Particle acceleration and high-frequency (X-ray and γ-ray) emission in the jets of active galactic nuclei

It is suggested that the outflowing plasma in the jets of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is inhomogeneous and consists of separate clouds. These clouds are strongly magnetized and move away from the central engine at relativistic speeds. The clouds interact with an ambient medium which is assumed to be at rest. In the process of this interaction, particles of the ambient medium are accelerated to high energies at the cloud front and flow ahead of the front. It is shown that the radiation of the accelerated particles may be responsible for the X-ray and gamma-ray emission from AGN jets. TeV gamma-ray emission is generated in the inner parts of AGN jets where the Lorentz factor of the cloud fronts is Gamma(0) > 30, while GeV gamma-ray emission emanates from the outer parts of AGN jets where Gamma(0) is similar to 10.