Global VLBI observations at 5 GHz have been performed to study the source morphology in 10 compact steep-spectrum (CSS) sources selected from the Peacock & Wall catalogue with the aim of finding asymmetric structures produced by the interaction with
the ambient medium. The combination of these data and earlier 1.7-GHz observations allows the study of the spectral index distribution across the source structure and the unambiguous determination of the nature of each component. In seven sources we detected the core component with a flat or inverted spectrum. In six sources the radio emission has a two-sided morphology and comes mainly from steep-spectrum extended structures, like lobes, jets, and hotspots. Only one source, 0319+121, has a one-sided core-jet structure. In three out of the six sources with a two-sided structure the flux density arising from the lobes is asymmetric, and the brightest lobe is the one closest to the core, suggesting that the jets are expanding in an inhomogeneous ambient medium which may influence the source growth. The interaction between the jet and the environment may slow down the source expansion and enhance the luminosity due to severe radiative losses, likely producing an excess of CSS radio sources in flux density limited samples. The lobes of the other three asymmetric sources have a brighter-when-farther behaviour, in agreement with what is expected by projection and relativistic effects. Simultaneous VLA observations carried out to investigate the polarization properties of the targets detected significant polarized emission (~5.5%) only from the quasar 0319+121.
The evolutionary stage of a powerful radio source originated by an AGN is related to its linear size. In this context, compact symmetric objects (CSOs), which are powerful and intrinsically small objects, should represent the young stage in the indiv
idual radio source life. However, the fraction of young radio sources in flux density-limited samples is much higher than what expected from the number counts of large radio sources.This indicates that a significant fraction of young radio sources does not develop to the classical Fanaroff-Riley radio galaxies,suggesting an intermittent jet activity. As the radio jets are expanding within the dense and inhomogeneous interstellar medium,the ambient may play a role in the jet growth, for example slowing down or even disrupting its expansion when a jet-cloud interaction takes place. Moreover, this environment may provide the thermal seed photons that scattered by the lobes electrons may be responsible for high energy emission, detectable by Fermi-LAT.
We present the analysis of simultaneous multi-frequency Very Large Array (VLA) observations of 57 out of 61 sources from the ``faint high frequency peaker (HFP) sample carried out in various epochs. Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data have been used
to identify the optical counterpart of each radio source. From the analysis of the multi-epoch spectra we find that 24 sources do not show evidence of spectral variability, while 12 objects do not possess a peaked spectrum anymore at least in one of the observing epochs. Among the remaining 21 sources showing some degree of variability, we find that in 8 objects the spectral properties change consistently with the expectation for a radio source undergoing adiabatic expansion. The comparison between the variability and the optical identification suggests that the majority of radio sources hosted in galaxies likely represent the young radio source population, whereas the majority of those associated with quasars are part of a different population similar to flat-spectrum objects, which possess peaked spectra during short intervals of their life, as found in other samples of high-frequency peaking objects. The analysis of the optical images from the SDSS points out the presence of companions around 6 HFP hosted in galaxies, suggesting that young radio sources resides in groups.
We present new polarisation observations at 13 cm, acquired using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT), of 65 sources, from the B3-VLA sample of Compact Steep-Spectrum sources. These new data are combined with our VLA polarisation data, at
3.6, 6 and, 21 cm, presented in a previous paper. Due to the multi-channel frequency capabilities of the WSRT, these new 13 cm observations enable a more reliable determination of integrated Rotation Measures, and of depolarisation behaviour with wavelength. The new data are inconsistent with the depolarisation models that we used earlier, and we propose an alternative model which seems to work properly. We also revise our previous model for the external Faraday screen, and its dependence on the source redshift.
We investigate the spectral characteristics of 51 candidate High Frequency Peakers (HFPs), from the ``bright HFP sample, in order to determine the nature of each object, and to obtain a smaller sample of genuine young radio sources. Simultaneous mult
i-frequency VLA observations carried out at various epochs have been used to detect flux density and spectral shape variability in order to pinpoint contaminant objects, since young radio sources are not expected to be significantly variable on such a short time-scale. From the analysis of the spectral variability we find 13 contaminant objects, 11 quasars, 1 BL Lac, and 1 unidentified object, which we have rejected from the sample of candidate young radio sources. The 6 years elapsed between the first and latest observing run are not enough to detect any substantial evolution of the overall spectrum of genuine, non variable, young radio sources. If we also consider the pc-scale information, we find that the total radio spectrum we observe is the result of the superposition of the spectra of different regions (lobes, hot-spots, core, jets), instead of a single homogeneous radio component. This indicates that the radio source structure plays a relevant role in determining the spectral shape also in the rather common case in which the morphology appears unresolved even on high-resolution scales.
