Kinematics of Parsec-Scale Jets of Gamma-Ray Bright Blazars at 43 GHz during Ten Years of the VLBA-BU-BLAZAR Program
Zachary R. Weaver, Svetlana G. Jorstad, Alan P. Marscher, Daria A. Morozova, Ivan S. Troitsky, Iván Agudo, José L. Gómez, Anne Lähteenmäki, Joni Tammi, Merja Tornikoski
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Accepted in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 54 pages, 32 figures, 16 tables, 3 figure sets, 6 machine-readable tables - Figure sets and machine-readable tables available upon request or upon publication in ApJSS
We analyze the parsec-scale jet kinematics from 2007 June to 2018 December of a sample of $γ$-ray bright blazars monitored roughly monthly with the Very Long Baseline Array at 43 GHz under the VLBA-BU-BLAZAR program. We implement a novel piece-wise linear fitting method to derive the kinematics of 521 distinct emission knots from a total of 3705 total intensity images in 22 quasars, 13 BL Lacertae objects, and 3 radio galaxies. Apparent speeds of these components range from $0.01c$ to $78c$, and 18.6\% of knots (other than the "core") are quasi-stationary. One-fifth of moving knots exhibit non-ballistic motion, with acceleration along the jet within 5 pc of the core (projected) and deceleration farther out. These accelerations occur mainly at locations coincident with quasi-stationary features. We calculate the physical parameters of 273 knots with statistically significant motion, including their Doppler factors, Lorentz factors, and viewing angles. We determine the typical values of these parameters for each jet and the average for each subclass of active galactic nuclei. We investigate the variability of the position angle of each jet over the ten years of monitoring. The fluctuations in position of the quasi-stationary components in radio galaxies tend to be parallel to the jet, while no directional preference is seen in the components of quasars and BL Lacertae objects. We find a connection between $γ$-ray states of blazars and their parsec-scale jet properties, with blazars with brighter 43 GHz cores typically reaching higher $γ$-ray maxima during flares.
We observed with the VLBA at 2.3 and 8.6 GHz a complete flux-density limited sample of 482 radio sources with declination >+75 degrees brighter than 200 mJy at 1.4 GHz drawn from the NVSS catalog. 34% of the sources show parsec-scale emission above the flux density detection limit of 30 mJy; their accurate positions and parsec-scale structure parameters are determined. Among all the sources detected at least at the shortest VLBA baselines, the majority, or 72%, has a steep single-dish spectrum. The fraction of the sources with a detectable parsec-scale structure is above 95% among the flat-spe…
I show that by assuming a standard Blandford-Konigl jet, it is possible to determine the bulk Lorentz factor and angle to the line of sight of self-similar parsec-scale blazar jets by using five measured quantities: redshift, core radio flux, extended radio flux, the magnitude of the core shift between two frequencies, and apparent jet opening angle. From the bulk Lorentz factor and angle computed with this method, one can compute other jet properties such as the Doppler factor, magnetic field strength, and intrinsic jet opening angle. I use data taken from the literature and marginalize over …
Recently the IceCube collaboration detected very high energy (VHE) neutrinos and associated them with the blazar \txs{}, raising a possible association of VHE neutrinos with this and other individual blazars. Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is so far the only technique enabling the imaging of the innermost jet at milli-arcsec resolution (parsec scale), where the high energy emission possibly originates from. Here, we report on the radio properties of the parsec scale jet in \txs{} derived from the analysis of multi-epoch multi-frequency archive VLBI data. The half opening angle of the…
Context. Many questions on the nature of astrophysical counterparts of high-energy neutrinos remain unanswered. There is increasing evidence of a connection between blazar jets and neutrino events, with the flare of the gamma-ray blazar TXS0506+056 in spatial and temporal proximity of IC170922A representing one of the most outstanding associations of high-energy neutrinos with astrophysical sources reported so far. Aims. With the purpose of characterising potential blazar counterparts to high-energy neutrinos, we analysed the parsec-scale regions of gamma-ray blazars in spatial coincidence wit…
PG 1553+113 is the first blazar showing an approximately two-year quasi-periodic pattern in its gamma-ray light curve. Such quasi-periodicity might have a geometrical origin, possibly related to the precessing nature of the jet, or could be intrinsic to the source and related to pulsational accretion flow instabilities. By means of a ~2yr very long baseline array (VLBA) monitoring at 15, 24, and 43 GHz we investigate the source pc-scale properties during an entire cycle of gamma-ray activity in the period 2015-2017. In contrast to the well-defined periodicity in the gamma-ray emission, at radi…
We present 88 multi-epoch Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) images (most at an observing frequency of 8 GHz), of 20 TeV blazars, all of the HBL class, that have not been previously studied at multiple epochs on the parsec scale. From these 20 sources, we analyze the apparent speeds of 43 jet components that are all detected at four or more epochs. As has been found for other TeV HBLs, the apparent speeds of these components are relatively slow. About two-thirds of the components have an apparent speed that is consistent (within two-sigma) with no motion; and some of these components may be stati…
The jet in active galactic nuclei (AGN) is a key ingredient in understanding the co-evolution of galaxies and their central supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Unfortunately, the mechanism of jet launching and collimation is still elusive. The observational evidence of decreasing radio loudness with increasing Eddington ratio implies that the jet should be coupled with the accretion process. To further explore the relationship between the jet and accretion, it is necessary to extend our knowledge of the jet to an extreme end of the Eddington ratio distribution of AGN. Using Very Long Baseline Ar…
Our recently reported lack of Intra-Night Optical Variability (INOV) among Broad-Absorption-Line (BAL) quasars exhibiting some blazar-like radio properties, either questions polar ejection of BAL clouds, and/or hints at a physical state of the relativistic jet modified due to interaction with the thermal BAL wind on the innermost sub-parsec scale. As a robust check on this unexpected finding for the BAL_blazar candidates, we report here the INOV study of a new and much more rigorously defined comparison sample consisting of 9 normal (non-BAL) blazars, matched in both magnitude and redshift to …
The physical nature of the mechanism responsible for the emission of neutrinos in active galactic nuclei (AGN) has been matter of debate in the literature, with relativistic jets of radio-loud AGNs as possible candidates to be the sources of high energy neutrinos. The most prominent candidate so far is the blazar TXS 0506+056, which is found to be associated with the neutrino event IceCube-170922A. Furthermore, the IceCube reported an excess of neutrinos towards TXS 0506+056 between September 2014 and March 2015, even though this association needs additional investigation, considering the pres…
Recently we have shown that high-energy neutrinos above 200 TeV detected by IceCube are produced within several parsecs in the central regions of radio-bright blazars, that is active galactic nuclei with jets pointing towards us. To independently test this result and extend the analysis to a wider energy range, we use public data for all neutrino energies from seven years of IceCube observations. The IceCube point-source likelihood map is analyzed against the positions of blazars from a statistically complete sample selected by their compact radio flux density. The latter analysis delivers a 3…
In February 2017 the blazar OJ287, one of the best super-massive binary-black-hole-system candidates, was detected for the first time at very high energies (VHEs; E>100GeV) with the ground-based gamma-ray observatory VERITAS. Very high energy gamma rays are thought to be produced in the near vicinity of the central engine in active galactic nuclei. For this reason, and with the main goal of providing useful information for the characterization of the physical mechanisms connected with the observed teraelectronvolt flaring event, we investigate the parsec-scale source properties by means of hig…
The central radio source in M87 provides the best opportunity to study jet formation because it has a large angular size for the gravitational radius of the black hole and has a bright jet that is well resolved by VLBI observations. We present intensive monitoring observations from 2007 and 2008, plus roughly annual observations that span 17 years, all made with the the Very Long Baseline Array at 43 GHz with a resolution of about 30 by 60 Rs. Our high-dynamic-range images clearly show the wide-opening-angle structure and the counter-jet. The jet and counter-jet are nearly symmetric in the inn…
The curved shape of the kiloparsec-scale jet of the blazar OJ 287 is analyzed in the framework of the precession of the central engine, on the existence on which a large number of studies over the past decades are based. The data necessary for the analysis of the kiloparsec-scale jet velocity and angle with the line of sight are obtained based on two competing assumptions about the X-ray emission mechanism of the OJ 287 jet. Namely, there were both the inverse Compton scattering of the microwave background under the assumption of relativistic kiloparsec-scale jet and the inverse Compton scatte…
High-energy astrophysical neutrinos have been observed by several telescopes in the last decade, but their sources still remained unknown. We address the problem of locating astrophysical neutrinos' sources in a statistical manner. We show that blazars positionally associated with IceCube neutrino detections have stronger parsec-scale radio cores than the rest of the sample. The probability of a chance coincidence is only 4*10^-5 corresponding to a significance of 4.1 sigma. We explicitly list four strong radio blazars as highly probable sources of neutrinos above 200 TeV: 3C 279, NRAO 530, PK…
The blazar J1924-2914 is a primary Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) calibrator for the Galactic Center's black hole Sagittarius A*. Here we present the first total and linearly polarized intensity images of this source obtained with the unprecedented 20 $μ$as resolution of the EHT. J1924-2914 is a very compact flat-spectrum radio source with strong optical variability and polarization. In April 2017 the source was observed quasi-simultaneously with the EHT (April 5-11), the Global Millimeter VLBI Array (April 3), and the Very Long Baseline Array (April 28), giving a novel view of the source at fo…
A VLBA-resolved Jet Associated with Super-Eddington Accretion in a Radio-loud Quasar at $z=3.4$
Waseda University（早稻田大学）；New York University Abu Dhabi（阿布扎比纽约大学）；Nagoya City University（名古屋市立大学）；National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台）；Tohoku University（东北大学）
The $γ$-ray narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies can be considered to be the third class of $γ$-ray active galactic nuclei possessing relativistic jets. In this paper, we present multi-band high resolution Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) images of the $γ$-ray NLS1, SDSS J211852.96$-$073227.5 (J2118$-$0732, $z=0.26$). We find a core-jet radio morphology and significant flux density variations in the radio core. The high brightness temperature estimated from VLBA images and core variability demonstrate that it exhibits substantial relativistic beaming effects. From considering radio emission in…
Multi-epoch VLBI observations of the blazar 3C 66A: Spatial twisting and temporal oscillation of the parsec-scale jet
Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute（韩国天文与空间科学研究所）；LUX, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université（巴黎天文台，PSL大学，法国国家科学研究中心，索邦大学）；Department of Astronomy & Center for Galaxy Evolution Research, Yonsei University（延世大学天文学系与星系演化研究中心）；Max-Planck Institut für Radioastronomie（马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所）；Korea National University of Science and Technology（韩国科学技术院）
The narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy PMN J0948+0022 is an archetype of gamma-ray-emitting NLS1s in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). In this study, we investigate its radio structures using archival data obtained using the Karl G.~Jansky very large array (VLA) and the very long baseline array (VLBA). The new VLA images reveal an outermost radio emission separated by 9.1 arcsec. Its resolved structure and steep spectrum suggest a terminal shock in a radio lobe energized by the jet from the PMN J0948+0022 nucleus. This large-scale radio component is found at almost the same position angle as tha…
Previous spectral energy distribution modeling based on XMM-Newton X-ray observation of the classical double-lobed radio galaxy 3C 411 left the possibility open for the presence of a blazar-like core. We investigated this scenario by characterizing the radio brightness distribution in the inner ~10-pc region of the source. We applied the very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) technique at four different frequencies from 1.7 to 7.6 GHz. We analyzed archival data from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) taken in 2014, and data from the European VLBI Network (EVN) obtained in 2017. The VLBI ima…
