scholarly journals Distortion Effects in BL Lac Radio Jets

1996 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 477-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Sol ◽  
S. Appl ◽  
L. Vicente

BL Lac objects often show a quite distorted radio morphology. Almost 75% of the BL Lacs for which the information is available show an apparent misalignment angle ΔPA between the VLBI jet and the large scale radio structure larger than 45 degrees. This can be explained by strong enhancement of slight bending due to projection effects, especially if BL Lacs are the most highly beamed sources. However we recently performed a statistical analysis of misalignment angle histograms for 155 extragalactic radio sources of different types and found that the intrinsic distortion is significantly more important in BL Lacs than in quasars and even CSS sources. Indeed the best fits of the δPA histograms by a simple bend model correspond to γɸ = 123° for BL Lacs, 37° for quasars and 36° for CSS sources, where ɸ and γ are the jet typical intrinsic bend and Lorentz factor within a given class of sources (Appl et al, 1995). If, as currently thought, jets in BL Lacs have smaller Lorentz factors than in quasars, high intrinsic bending and misalignment appear to be the rule in BL Lac sources.

1996 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 47-48
Author(s):  
A. Sillanpää ◽  
L. Takalo ◽  
K. Nilsson ◽  
T. Pursimo ◽  
P. Teerikorpi ◽  
...  

A widely accepted model for BL Lac objects is that they are radio galaxies with a relativistic jet pointing almost directly towards us. But we need a clear trigger mechanism for these jets. One possibility is the close interaction between the BL Lac host and the closeby galaxies (e.g. Heckman et al. 1986). This interaction has been seen many times in the case of quasars (Hutchings et al. 1989) but not so much is known about the close surroundings of the BL Lac objects although there has been some pioneer work like Stickel et al. (1993). The problem has usually been that the images are not deep enough and that the seeing has not been so good. To clarify the situation we have started an observing program to get very deep images in the sub-arcsecond seeing conditions from the whole 1 Jy sample (Stickel et al. 1991) of BL Lac objects. The aims of this study are: 1. to search for very close companions to the BL Lacs, 2. to study the large scale galaxy clustering around the BL Lacs and 3. to study the BL Lac hosts themselves.


1988 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 109-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. M. Worrall

A good correlation is known to exist between the X-ray and radio luminosity of flat-spectrum, core-dominated radio sources (e.g., Owen, Helfand and Spangler 1981). Worrall (1987) presents a logarithmic plot of spectral luminosity in the source frame at 2 keV versus that at 5 GHz for a variety of QSOs, Highly Polarized QSOs (HPQs), and BL Lac Objects. Friedmann cosmology with Ho = 100h km s−1 Mpc−1, qo = 0 is assumed. Exclusion of objects which are optically or X-ray selected, or in which the radio emission is not dominated by a flat-spectrum compact core, gives a sub-sample consisting of 50 QSOs, 20 HPQs, and 10 BL Lacs, of which 5,4,3, respectively, are known superluminals. The dispersion of these data about the log-log correlation (assuming a Gaussian distribution), is σobs = 0.44 ± 0.06 (90% confidence errors for one interesting parameter).


1996 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 53-54
Author(s):  
M. Bondi ◽  
D. Dallacasa ◽  
C. Stanghellini ◽  
R. Della Ceca

The study of the extended emission and polarization properties of BL Lacs is an important step for the identification of their parent population. FRI radio sources, the supposed parent population of BL Lacs, have weaker extended radio luminosity and a dominant inferred magnetic field perpendicular to the jet, while FRII radio sources, the supposed parent population of quasars, have stronger extended radio power and an inferred magnetic field parallel to the jet. The only complete sample of radio selected BL Lacs (1 Jy sample, Stickel et al. 1991, ApJ, 374, 431) contains 34 objects. Unfortunately, about half of 1 Jy BL Lacs do not have very high dynamic range images, necessary to detect the low emissivity radio emission surrounding the bright compact source, either because the object was never observed, or because the observation was carried out at the beginning of 1980s with low sensitivity. In 1994 we started a programme using the VLA (A, B, and D configuration, see Table 1) and the WSRT (W in Table 1) to complete the high sensitivity radio imaging of the 1 Jy sample. We aim to investigate morphology and polarization properties, as well as the luminosity of the extended emission. This contribution presents the L band observations. The results are very preliminary, some of the data reduction is still in progress as well as the statistical analysis. The sources in Table 1 have been roughly classified as extended (E), or point-like (P) if no extended feature was detected. Among the 15 sources observed at the highest resolution 13 were classified as extended. In many sources we detect significantly much more extended flux than previously reported from earlier observations. Almost all the BL Lac objects we observed at the highest resolution show some extended features; furthermore, in a few cases, we detected emission on the arcminute scale. The power of the extended luminosity covers 3 orders of magnitude, 3 objects (0537–441, 0820+225, and 2240–260) have values typical of a FRII radio source. These new data will be used for an updated statistical analysis of the properties of the extended emission in the 1 Jy sample of BL Lac objects.


2002 ◽  
Vol 184 ◽  
pp. 301-303
Author(s):  
Gabriel A. Ohanian

Extragalactic radio sources have been studied for many years, but it is still unclear how they are formed and evolve. The sizes of the most powerful radio emitters in the Universe vary from less than one parsec to more than 1 Mpc. This large range of sizes has been interpreted as evidence for the evolution of the linear sizes of radio structure (e.g., O’Dea and Baum, 1997). A crucial element in the study of their evolution is the identification of the young compact counterparts of “old” FRI/FRII extended objects. Good candidates for young radio sources are those with peaked spectra (Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum - GPS and Compact Steep Spectrum - CSS, e.g., O’Dea 1998). Radio sources are presumably born in the very compact GPS phase, then they expand beyond 1 kpc into the CSS regime and finally, they reach a size of 20 kpc, and afterwards evolve into large-scale radio sources (young scenario, e.g., O’Dea 1998). Alternatively, GPS sources may be compact because a particularly dense environment prevents them from growing larger (old scenario, e.g., O’Dea 1998). In either scenario, the radio source host galaxy determines the time evolution of the radio structure. By studying the optical environments and host galaxies we hope to obtain clues to the evolution of the radio sources. Similarities or differences in host galaxy properties over a range of radio source types and sizes enable us to investigate possible differences or similarities of the radio size class as a whole.


2014 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 1460178
Author(s):  
◽  
HEIKE PROKOPH

The majority of blazars detected at very high energies (VHE; E > 100 GeV) are high-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects (HBLs). Low- and intermediate-frequency-peaked BL Lacs (LBLs/IBLs with synchrotron-peak frequencies in the infrared and optical regime) are generally more powerful, more luminous, and have a richer jet environment than HBLs. However, only a handful of these IBL and LBLs have been detected by ground-based gamma-ray telescopes, typically during high-flux states. The VERITAS array has been monitoring five known VHE LBLs/IBLs since 2009: 3C 66A, W Comae, PKS 1424+240, S5 0716+714 and BL Lacertae, with typical exposures of 5-10 hours per year. The results of these long-term observations are presented, including a bright, subhour-scale VHE flare of BL Lacertae in June 2011, the first low-state detections of 3C 66A and W Comae, and the detection and characterization of the IBL B2 1215+30.


Author(s):  
Zhiyuan Pei ◽  
Junhui Fan ◽  
Jianghe Yang ◽  
Denis Bastieri

Abstract Blazars are a subclass of active galactic nuclei with extreme observation properties, which is caused by the beaming effect, expressed by a Doppler factor ( $\delta$ ), in a relativistic jet. Doppler factor is an important parameter in the blazars paradigm to indicate all of the observation properties, and many methods were proposed to estimate its value. In this paper, we present a method following Mattox et al. to calculate the lower limit on $\gamma$ -ray Doppler factor ( $\delta_{\gamma}$ ) for 809 selected Fermi/LAT-detected $\gamma$ -ray blazars by adopting the available $\gamma$ -ray and X-ray data. Our sample included 342 flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and 467 BL Lac objects (BL Lacs), out of which 507 sources are compiled with available radio core-dominance parameter (R) from our previous study. Our calculation shows that the average values of the lower limit on $\delta_{\gamma}$ for FSRQs and BL Lacs are $\left\langle\delta_{\gamma}|_{\textrm{FSRQ}}\right\rangle = 6.87 \pm 4.07$ and $\left\langle\delta_{\gamma}|_{\textrm{BL\ Lac}}\right\rangle=4.31 \pm 2.97$ , respectively. We compare and discuss our results with those from the literature. We found that the derived lower limit on $\delta_{\gamma}$ for some sources is higher than that from the radio estimation, which could be possibly explained by the jet bending within those blazars. Our results also suggest that the $\gamma$ -ray and radio regions perhaps share the same relativistic effects. The $\gamma$ -ray Doppler factor has been found to be correlated with both the $\gamma$ -ray luminosity and core-dominance parameter, implying that the jet is possibly continuous in the $\gamma$ -ray bands, and R is perhaps an indicator for a beaming effect.


1990 ◽  
Vol 141 ◽  
pp. 194-194
Author(s):  
Tong Fu

Based on extragalactic radio sources, a new high precision extragalactic radio reference frame can be established from radio interferometric measurements. To link the optical fundamental reference frame presently represented by the FK4/5 to the extragalactic radio frame, the optical counterparts of extragalactic radio sources (quasars, BL Lac objects etc.) and radio stars are the most important classes of objects. Besides these two classes of objects, are there any other objects which can be used to link the optical and radio frames? A posible answer is that artificial satellites could be a candidate class of objects contributing to this subject.


2020 ◽  
Vol 497 (2) ◽  
pp. 2260-2264
Author(s):  
Tao An ◽  
Yingkang Zhang ◽  
Sándor Frey

ABSTRACT In large-scale optical spectroscopic surveys, there are many objects found to have multiple redshift measurements due to the weakness of their emission lines and the different automatic identification algorithms used. These include some suspicious high-redshift $(z \gtrsim 5)$ active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Here, we present a method for inspecting the high-redshift identification of such sources provided that they are radio-loud and have very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) imaging observations of their milli-arcsec (mas) scale jet structure available at multiple epochs. The method is based on the determination of jet component proper motions, and the fact that the combination of jet physics (the observed maximal values of the bulk Lorentz factor) and cosmology (the time dilation of observed phenomena in the early Universe) constrain the possible values of apparent proper motions. As an example, we present the case of the quasar J2346 + 0705 that was reported with two different redshifts, z1 = 5.063 and z2 = 0.171, in the literature. We measured the apparent proper motions (μ) of three components identified in its radio jet by utilizing VLBI data taken from 2014 to 2018. We obtained μJ1 = 0.334 ± 0.099 mas yr−1, μJ2 = 0.116 ± 0.029 mas yr−1, and μJ3 = 0.060 ± 0.005 mas yr−1. The maximal proper motion is converted to an apparent transverse speed of $\beta _{\rm app} = 41.2\pm 12.2\, c$, if the source is at redshift 5.063. This value exceeds the blazar jet speeds known to date. This and other arguments suggest that J2346 + 0705 is hosted by a low-redshift galaxy. Our method may be applicable for other high-redshift AGN candidates lacking unambiguous spectroscopic redshift determination or having photometric redshift estimates only, but showing prominent radio jets allowing for VLBI measurements of fast jet proper motions.


1997 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 695-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erick. J. Guerra ◽  
Ruth A. Daly

AbstractRelativistic outflows from AGN can be parameterized by θ, the angle subtended by the direction of the outflow and the line of sight to the observer, and γ, the bulk Lorentz factor of the outflow. The Doppler factor, δ, and the apparent speed in the plane of the sky, βapp, are combinations of θ and γ. The Doppler factor can be estimated using either the equipartition Doppler factor, δeq (Readhead 1994), or the inverse Compton Doppler factor, δIC. These Doppler factor estimates are combined with observed βapp to solve for θ and γ for different categories of AGN.Ghisellini et al. (1993) compute δIC for 105 compact radio sources, and Güijosa & Daly (1996) compute δeq for the same sample. Daly, Guerra, & Güijosa (1996) estimate θ and γ for the 43 sources that have βapp listed by Vermeulen & Cohen (1994) and δeq computed by Güijosa & Daly (1996).Solutions and errors for θ and γ are presented in Figures 1 and 2 using δeq and δIC respectively. Guerra & Daly (1996) discuss these estimates and errors in greater detail. These AGN fall into the following categories: BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs), core-dominated high-polarization quasars (CDHPQ), core-dominated low-polarization quasars (CDLPQ), core-dominated quasars with no polarization information (CDQ(NPI)), lobe-dominated quasars (LDQ), and radio galaxies (RG).


1994 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 497-497
Author(s):  
M.F. Aller ◽  
H.D. Aller ◽  
P.A. Hughes

To study whether the radio properties of BL Lacertae type objects and QSOs differ, we initiated a program in 1979 to monitor the total flux density and linear polarization at 14.5, 8.0 and 4.8 GHz of the strongest then known BL Lac objects which met the Hewitt-Burbidge criteria (Ledden, private communications) plus 3 subsequently identified high declination BL Lacs (Biermann et al. 1981). Results based on the behavior of the 45 brightest sample members are compared here with the properties of the QSOs in the flux-limited Pearson-Readhead sample (Pearson and Readhead 1988).


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