ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

A transition from parabolic to conical shape as a common effect in nearby AGN jets

48   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Yuri Kovalev
 تاريخ النشر 2019
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English
 تأليف Y. Y. Kovalev




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

Observational studies of collimation in jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are a key to understanding their formation and acceleration processes. We have performed an automated search for jet shape transitions in a sample of 367 AGN using VLBA data at 15 GHz and 1.4 GHz. This search has found ten out of 29 nearby jets at redshifts z<0.07 with a transition from a parabolic to conical shape, while the full analyzed sample is dominated by distant AGN with a typical z about 1. The ten AGN are UGC00773, NGC1052, 3C111, 3C120, TXS0815-094, Mrk180, PKS1514+00, NGC6251, 3C371, and BL Lac. We conclude that the geometry transition may be a common effect in AGN jets. It can be observed only when sufficient linear resolution is obtained. Supplementing these results with previously reported shape breaks in the nearby AGN 1H0323+342 and M87, we estimate that the break occurs at 10^5-10^6 gravitational radii from the nucleus. We suggest that the jet shape transition happens when the bulk plasma kinetic energy flux becomes equal to the Poynting energy flux, while the ambient medium pressure is assumed to be governed by Bondi accretion. In general, the break point may not coincide with the Bondi radius. The observational data supports our model predictions on the jet acceleration and properties of the break point.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

Cosmic reionization put an end to the dark ages that came after the recombination era. Observations seem to favor the scenario where massive stars generating photons in low-mass galaxies were responsible for the bulk of reionization. Even though a po ssible contribution from accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) has been widely considered, they are currently thought to have had a minor role in reionization. Our aim is to study the possibility that AGN contributed to reionization not only through their accretion disks, but also through ionizing photons coming from the AGN jets interacting with the IGM. We adopt an empirically derived AGN luminosity function at $zsimeq6$, use X-ray observations to correct it for the presence of obscured sources, and estimate the density of jetted AGN. We then use analytical calculations to derive the fraction of jet energy that goes into ionizing photons. Finally, we compute the contribution of AGN jets to the H II volume filling factor at redshifts $zsimeq15-5$. We show that the contribution of the AGN jet lobes to the reionization of the Universe at $zsim6$ might have been as high as $gtrsim 10$% of that of star-forming galaxies, under the most favorable conditions of jetted and obscuration fraction. The contribution of AGN to the reionization, while most likely not dominant, could have been higher than previously assumed, thanks to the radiation originated in the jet lobes.
112 - S. Falocco , J. Larsson , S. Nandi 2020
We aim to determine the properties of the central region of NGC 1052 using X-ray and radio data. NGC 1052 (z=0.005) has been investigated for decades in different energy bands and shows radio lobes and a low luminosity active galactic nucleus (LLAGN) . We use X-ray images from Chandra and radio images from Very Large Array (VLA) to explore the morphology of the central area. We also study the spectra of the nucleus and the surrounding region using observations from Chandra and XMM-Newton. We find diffuse soft X-ray radiation and hotspots along the radio lobes. The spectrum of the circum-nuclear region is well described by a thermal plasma (T~0.6 keV) and a power law with photon index Gamma~2.3. The nucleus shows a hard power law (Gamma~1.4) modified by complex absorption. A narrow iron K-alpha line is also clearly detected in all observations, but there is no evidence for relativistic reflection. The extended emission is consistent with originating from extended jets and from jet-triggered shocks in the surrounding medium. The hard power-law emission from the nucleus and the lack of relativistic reflection supports the scenario of inefficient accretion in an Advection Dominated Accretion Flow (ADAF).
The Blandford and K{o}nigl model of AGN jets predicts that the position of the apparent opaque jet base - the core - changes with frequency. This effect is observed with radio interferometry and is widely used to infer parameters and structure of the innermost jet regions. The position of the radio core is typically estimated by fitting a Gaussian template to the interferometric visibilities. This results in a model approximation error, i.e. a bias that can be detected and evaluated through simulations of observations with a realistic jet model. To assess the bias, we construct an artificial sample of sources based on the AGN jet model evaluated on a grid of the parameters derived from a real VLBI flux-density-limited sample and create simulated VLBI data sets at 2.3, 8.1 and 15.4 GHz. We found that the core position shifts from the true jet apex are generally overestimated. The bias is typically comparable to the core shift random error and can reach a factor of two for jets with large apparent opening angles. This observational bias depends mostly on the ratio between the true core shift and the image resolution. This implies that the magnetic field, the core radial distance and the jet speed inferred from the core shift measurements are overestimated. We present a method to account for the bias.
176 - X. Zhao , S. Marchesi , M. Ajello 2020
The obscuration observed in active galactic nuclei (AGN) is mainly caused by dust and gas distributed in a torus-like structure surrounding the supermassive black hole (SMBH). However, properties of the obscuring torus of the AGN in X-ray have not be en fully investigated yet due to the lack of high-quality data and proper models. In this work, we perform a broadband X-ray spectral analysis of a large, unbiased sample of obscured AGN (with line-of-sight column density 23$le$log(NH)$le$24) in the nearby universe which has high-quality archival NuSTAR data. The source spectra are analyzed using the recently developed borus02 model, which enables us to accurately characterize the physical and geometrical properties of AGN obscuring tori. We also compare our results obtained from the unbiased Compton thin AGN with those of Compton-thick AGN. We find that Compton thin and Compton-thick AGN may possess similar tori, whose average column density is Compton thick (N$rm _{H,tor,ave}$ $sim$1.4$times$10$^{24}$ cm$^{-2}$), but they are observed through different (under-dense or over-dense) regions of the tori. We also find that the obscuring torus medium is significantly inhomogeneous, with the torus average column densities significantly different from their line-of-sight column densities (for most of the sources in the sample). The average torus covering factor of sources in our unbiased sample is c$_f$=0.67, suggesting that the fraction of unobscured AGN is $sim$33%. We develop a new method to measure the intrinsic line-of-sight column density distribution of AGN in the nearby universe, which we find the result is in good agreement with the constraints from recent population synthesis models.
Synchrotron self-absorption in active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets manifests itself as a time delay between flares observed at high and low radio frequencies. It is also responsible for the observing frequency dependent change in size and position of t he apparent base of the jet, aka the core shift effect, detected with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). We measure the time delays and the core shifts in 11 radio-loud AGN to estimate the speed of their jets without relying on multi-epoch VLBI kinematics analysis. The 15$-$8 GHz total flux density time lags are obtained using Gaussian process regression, the core shift values are measured using VLBI observations and adopted from the literature. A strong correlation is found between the apparent core shift and the observed time delay. Our estimate of the jet speed is higher than the apparent speed of the fastest VLBI components by the median coefficient of 1.4. The coefficient ranges for individual sources from 0.5 to 20. We derive Doppler factors, Lorentz factors and viewing angles of the jets, as well as the corresponding de-projected distance from the jet base to the core. The results support evidence for acceleration of the jets with bulk motion Lorentz factor $Gammapropto R^{0.52pm0.03}$ on de-projected scales $R$ of 0.5$-$500 parsecs.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا