No Arabic abstract
We report the discovery of unusually strong optical and X-ray emission associated with a knot in the radio jet of PKS B1421-490. The knot is the brightest feature observed beyond the radio band, with knot/core flux ratios ~300 and 3.7 at optical and X-ray frequencies. We interpret the extreme optical output of the knot as synchrotron emission. The nature of the X-ray emission is unclear. We consider a second synchrotron component, inverse Compton emission from a relativistic, decelerating jet, and the possibility that this feature is a chance superposition of an unusual BL Lac object.
We present a detailed study of the X-ray, optical and radio emission from the jet, lobes and core of the quasar PKS 2101-490 as revealed by new Chandra, HST and ATCA images. We extract the radio to X-ray spectral energy distributions from seven regions of the 13 arcsecond jet, and model the jet X-ray emission in terms of Doppler beamed inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background (IC/CMB) for a jet in a state of equipartition between particle and magnetic field energy densities. This model implies that the jet remains highly relativistic hundreds of kpc from the nucleus, with a bulk Lorentz factor Gamma ~ 6 and magnetic field of order 30 microGauss. We detect an apparent radiative cooling break in the synchrotron spectrum of one of the jet knots, and are able to interpret this in terms of a standard one-zone continuous injection model, based on jet parameters derived from the IC/CMB model. However, we note apparent substructure in the bright optical knot in one of the HST bands. We confront the IC/CMB model with independent estimates of the jet power, and find that the IC/CMB model jet power is consistent with the independent estimates, provided that the minimum electron Lorentz factor gamma_min > 50, and the knots are significantly longer than the jet width, as implied by de-projection of the observed knot lengths.
PKS 1749+096 is a BL Lac object showing weak extended jet emission to the northeast of the compact VLBI core on parsec scales. We aim at better understanding the jet kinematics and variability of this source and finding clues that may applicable to other BL Lac objects. The jet was studied with multi-epoch multi-frequency high-resolution VLBI observations. The jet is characterized by a one-sided curved morphology at all epochs and all frequencies. The VLBI core, located at the southern end of the jet, was identified based on its spectral properties. The equipartition magnetic field of the core was investigated, through which we derived a Doppler factor of 5, largely consistent with that derived from kinematics (component C5). The study of the detailed jet kinematics at 22 and 15 GHz, spanning a period of more than 10 years, indicates the possible existence of a bimodal distribution of the jet apparent speed. Ballistic and non-ballistic components are found to coexist in the jet. Superluminal motions in the range of 5-21 c were measured in 11 distinct components. We estimated the physical jet parameters with the minimum Lorentz factor of 10.2 and Doppler factors in the range of 10.2-20.4 (component C5). The coincidence in time of the components ejection and flares supports the idea that, at least in PKS 1749+096, ejection of new jet components is connected with major outbursts in flux density. For the best-traced component (C5) we found that the flux density decays rapidly as it travels downstream the jet, accompanied by a steepening of its spectra, which argues in favor of a contribution of inverse Compton cooling. These properties make PKS 1749+096 a suitable target for an intensive monitoring to decipher the variability phenomenon of BL Lac objects.
We present polarimetric 5 GHz to 43 GHz VLBI observations of the BL Lacertae object PKS 0735+178, spanning March 1996 to May 2000. Comparison with previous and later observations suggests that the overall kinematic and structural properties of the jet are greatly influenced by its activity. Time intervals of enhanced activity, as reported before 1993 and after 2000 by other studies, are followed by highly superluminal motion along a rectilinear jet. In contrast the less active state in which we performed our observations, shows subluminal or slow superluminal jet features propagating through a twisted jet with two sharp bends of about 90 deg. within the innermost three-milliarcsecond jet structure. Proper motion estimates from the data presented here allow us to constrain the jet viewing angle to values < 9 deg., and the bulk Lorentz factor to be between 2 and 4.
We carried out a multifrequency and multiepoch study of the highly polarized quasar, PKS 1502+106 at radio frequencies. The analysis is based on an EVN dataset at 5 GHz, archive VLBA datasets at 2.3, 8.3, 24.4 and 43.1 GHz and an archive MERLIN dataset at 5 GHz. The various datasets span over a period of 10 years. The source is characterized by a multi-component one-sided jet at all epochs. The VLBI images show that a complex curved jet is located to the southeast and east of the core, with the position angle (PA) of the jet axis wiggling between 80 deg and 130 deg. The MERLIN image reveals that the jet extends to 0.6 arcsec at a PA 135+-12 degr. The radio core in the VLBI images has a brightness temperature approaching the equipartition limit, indicating highly relativistic plasma beamed towards us. Delta PA in the source, the misalignment of the kpc- and pc-scale radio structure, is estimated about 32 degr, suggesting that PKS 1502+106 belongs to the aligned population. Four superluminal components are detected in the parsec scale jet, whose velocities are 24.2 h{-1}c, 14.3 h{-1}c, 6.8 h{-1}c and 18.1 h{-1}c. Our analysis supports the idea that the relativistic jet in PKS 1502+106 is characterised by extreme beaming and that its radio properties are similar to those of gamma-ray loud sources.
This letter reports rich X-ray jet structures found in the Chandra observation of PKS 1055+201. In addition to an X-ray jet coincident with the radio jet we detect a region of extended X-ray emission surrounding the jet as far from the core as the radio hotspot to the North, and a similar extended X-ray region along the presumed path of the unseen counterjet to the Southern radio lobe. Both X-ray regions show a similar curvature to the west, relative to the quasar. We interpret this as the first example where we separately detect the X-ray emission from a narrow jet and extended, residual jet plasma over the entire length of a powerful FRII jet.