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Register a new userFine-scale structure of the quasar 3C 279 Measured with 1.3 mm very long baseline interferometry
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We report results from 5-day VLBI observations of the well-known quasar 3C 279 at 1.3 mm (230 GHz) in 2011. The measured nonzero closure phases on triangles including stations in Arizona, California and Hawaii indicate that the source structure is spatially resolved. We find an unusual inner jet direction at scales of $sim$1 parsec extending along the northwest-southeast direction (PA = $127^{circ}pm3^{circ}$), as opposed to other (previously) reported measurements on scales of a few parsecs showing inner jet direction extending to the southwest. The 1.3 mm structure corresponds closely with that observed in the central region of quasi-simultaneous super-resolution VLBA images at 7 mm. The closure phase changed significantly on the last day when compared with the rest of observations, indicating that the inner jet structure may be variable on daily timescales. The observed new direction of the inner jet shows inconsistency with the prediction of a class of jet precession models. Our observations indicate a brightness temperature of $sim 8times10^{10}$ K in the 1.3 mm core, much lower than that at centimeter wavelengths. Observations with better uv coverage and sensitivity in the coming years will allow the discrimination between different structure models and will provide direct images of the inner regions of the jet with 20--30 $mu$as (5--7 light months) resolution.
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Adding VLBI capability to the SKA arrays will greatly broaden the science of the SKA, and is feasible within the current specifications. SKA-VLBI can be initially implemented by providing phased-array outputs for SKA1-MID and SKA1-SUR and using these extremely sensitive stations with other radio telescopes, and in SKA2 by realising a distributed configuration providing baselines up to thousands of km, merging it with existing VLBI networks. The motivation for and the possible realization of SKA-VLBI is described in this paper.
The 16th magnitude quasar 3C 345 (redshift z=0.5928) shows structural and emission variability on parsec scales around a compact unresolved radio core. For the last three decades it has been closely monitored with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), yielding a wealth of information about the physics of relativistic outflows and dynamics of the central regions in AGN. We present here preliminary results for the long-term jet evolution, based on the 15 GHz monitoring data collected by the MOJAVE survey and various other groups over the last ~14 years and combined with data from earlier VLBI observations of 3C 345 which started in 1979. We discuss the trajectories, kinematics, and flux density evolution of enhanced emission regions embedded in the jet and present evidence for geometrical (e.g. precession) and physical (e.g. relativistic shocks and plasma instability) factors determining the morphology and dynamics of relativistic flows on parsec scales.
The flat spectrum radio quasar 3C 279 is a known $gamma$-ray variable source that has recently exhibited minute-scale variability at energies $>100$ MeV. One-zone leptonic models for blazar emission are severely constrained by the short timescale variability that implies a very compact emission region at a distance of hundreds of Schwarzschild radii from the central black hole. Here, we investigate a hadronic scenario where GeV $gamma$-rays are produced via proton synchrotron radiation. We also take into account the effects of the hadronically initiated electromagnetic cascades (EMC). For a $gamma$-ray emitting region in rough equipartition between particles and kG magnetic fields, located within the broad-line region (BLR), the development of EMC redistributes the $gamma$-ray luminosity to softer energy bands and eventually leads to broad-band spectra that differ from the observed ones. Suppression of EMC and energy equipartition are still possible, if the $gamma$-ray emitting region is located beyond the BLR, is fast moving with Doppler factor ($>70$), and contains strong magnetic fields ($>100$ G). Yet, these conditions cannot be easily met in parsec-scale jets, thus disfavouring a proton synchrotron origin of the Fermi-LAT flare.
We present the jet kinematics of the flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) 4C +21.35 using time-resolved KaVA very long baseline interferometry array radio maps obtained from September 2014 to July 2016. During two out of three observing campaigns, observations were performed bi-weekly at 22 and 43 GHz quasi-simultaneously. At 22 GHz, we identified three jet components near the core with apparent speeds up to (14.4+/-2.1)c. The timing of the ejection of a new component detected in 2016 is consistent with a gamma-ray flare in November 2014. At 43 GHz, we found four inner jet (<3 mas) components with speeds from (3.5+/-1.4)c to (6.8+/-1.5)c. Jet component speeds tend to be higher with increasing distances from the core. We compared our data with archival Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) data from the Boston University (BU) 43 GHz and the Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments (MOJAVE) 15.4 GHz monitoring programs. Whereas MOJAVE data and our data are in good agreement, jet speeds obtained from the BU Program data in the same time period are about twice as high as the ones we obtain from the KaVA data. The discrepancy at 43 GHz indicates that radio arrays with different angular resolution identify and trace different jet features even when the data are obtained at the same frequency and at the same time. The flux densities of jet components decay exponentially, in agreement with a synchrotron cooling time scale of about 1 year. Using known electron Lorentz factor values (about 9,000), we estimate the magnetic field strength to be around 1-3 micro-Tesla. When adopting a jet viewing angle of 5 degrees, the intrinsic jet speed is of order 0.99c.
Some models of the expanding Universe predict that the astrometric proper motion of distant radio sources embedded in space-time are non-zero as the radial distance from observer to the source grows. Systematic proper motion effects would produce a predictable quadrupole pattern on the sky that could be detected using Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique. This quadrupole pattern can be interpreted either as an anisotropic Hubble expansion, or as a signature of the primordial gravitational waves in the early Universe. We present our analysis of a large set of geodetic VLBI data spanning 1979--2015 to estimate the dipole and quadrupole harmonics in the expansion of the vector field of the proper motions of quasars in the sky. The analysis is repeated for different redshift zones.
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