  Magnetized plasma jets are generally modeled as magnetic flux tubes filled
with flowing plasma governed by magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). We outline here a
more fundamental approach based on flux tubes of canonical vorticity, where
canonical vorticity is defined as the circulation of the species canonical
momentum. This approach extends the concept of magnetic flux tube evolution to
include the effects of finite particle momentum and enables visualization of
the topology of plasma jets in regimes beyond MHD. A flared, current-carrying
magnetic flux tube in an ion-electron plasma with finite ion momentum is thus
equivalent to either a pair of electron and ion flow flux tubes, a pair of
electron and ion canonical momentum flux tubes, or a pair of electron and ion
canonical vorticity flux tubes. We examine the morphology of all these flux
tubes for increasing electrical currents, different radial current profiles,
different electron Mach numbers, and a fixed, flared, axisymmetric magnetic
geometry. Calculations of gauge-invariant relative canonical helicities track
the evolution of magnetic, cross, and kinetic helicities in the system, and
show that ion flow fields can unwind to compensate for an increasing magnetic
twist. The results demonstrate that including a species finite momentum can
result in a very long collimated canonical vorticity flux tube even if the
magnetic flux tube is flared. With finite momentum, particle density gradients
must be normal to canonical vorticities, not to magnetic fields, so
observations of collimated astrophysical jets could be images of canonical
vorticity flux tubes instead of magnetic flux tubes.
