scholarly journals Monitoring Of Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei with VLBA Experiments. XVIII. Kinematics and Inner Jet Evolution of Bright Radio-loud Active Galaxies

2021 ◽  
Vol 923 (1) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
M. L. Lister ◽  
D. C. Homan ◽  
K. I. Kellermann ◽  
Y. Y. Kovalev ◽  
A. B. Pushkarev ◽  
...  

Abstract We have analyzed the parsec-scale jet kinematics of 447 bright radio-loud active active galactic nuclei (AGN), based on 15 GHz Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) data obtained between 1994 August 31 and 2019 August 4. We present new total intensity and linear polarization maps obtained between 2017 January 1 and 2019 August 4 for 143 of these AGN. We tracked 1923 bright features for five or more epochs in 419 jets. The majority (60%) of the well-sampled jet features show either accelerated or nonradial motion. In 47 jets there is at least one nonaccelerating feature with an unusually slow apparent speed. Most of the jets show variations of 10°–50° in their inner jet position angle (PA) over time, although the overall distribution has a continuous tail out to 200°. AGN with spectral energy distributions peaked at lower frequencies tend to have more variable PAs, with BL Lac objects being less variable than quasars. The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) gamma-ray-associated AGN also tend to have more variable PAs than the non-LAT AGN in our sample. We attribute these trends to smaller viewing angles for the lower spectral peaked and LAT-associated jets. We identified 13 AGN where multiple features emerge over decade-long periods at systematically increasing or decreasing PAs. Since the ejected features do not fill the entire jet cross section, this behavior is indicative of a precessing flow instability near the jet base. Although some jets show indications of oscillatory PA evolution, we claim no bona fide cases of periodicity since the fitted periods are comparable to the total VLBA time coverage.

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S304) ◽  
pp. 200-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Giovannini ◽  
E. Liuzzo ◽  
B. Boccardi ◽  
M. Giroletti

AbstractThe advent of Fermi is changing our understanding on the radio and γ-ray emission in active galactic nuclei. Unlike pre-Fermi ideas, BL Lac objects are found to be the most abundant emitters in the γ-ray band. However, since they are relatively weak radio sources, most of their parsec-scale structure and their multifrequency properties are poorly understood and/or have not been investigated in a systematic fashion. Here we are analyzing the radio and γ-ray emission properties of a sample of 42 BL Lacs selected with no constraint on their radio and γ-ray emission. Thanks to new Very Long Baseline Array observations at 8 and 15 GHz for the whole sample, we discuss their parsec-scale structure. Parsec-scale radio emission is observed in the majority of the sources at both frequencies. The comparison between our results in radio and gamma-ray bands points out the presence of a large number of faint BL Lacs showing “non-classical” properties such as low source compactness, low core dominance, no gamma-ray emission.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (10) ◽  
pp. 372
Author(s):  
Luigi Foschini ◽  
Matthew L. Lister ◽  
Sonia Antón ◽  
Marco Berton ◽  
Stefano Ciroi ◽  
...  

We are compiling a new list of gamma-ray jetted active galactic nuclei (AGN), starting from the fourth catalog of point sources of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Our aim is to prepare a list of jetted AGN with known redshifts and classifications to be used to calibrate jet power. We searched in the available literature for all the published optical spectra and multiwavelength studies useful to characterize the sources. We found new, missed, or even forgotten information leading to a substantial change in the redshift values and classification of many sources. We present here the preliminary results of this analysis and some statistics based on the gamma-ray sources with right ascension within the interval 0h--12h (J2000). Although flat-spectrum radio quasars and BL Lac objects are still the dominant populations, there is a significant increase in the number of other objects, such as misaligned AGN, narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies, and Seyfert galaxies. We also introduced two new classes of objects: changing-look AGN and ambiguous sources. About one third of the sources remain unclassified.


2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (3) ◽  
pp. 4120-4130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raniere de Menezes ◽  
Rodrigo Nemmen ◽  
Justin D Finke ◽  
Ivan Almeida ◽  
Bindu Rani

ABSTRACT The majority of the activity around nearby (z ≈ 0) supermassive black holes is found in low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGN), the most of them being classified as low-ionization nuclear emission regions. Although these sources are well studied from radio up to X-rays, they are poorly understood in γ-rays. In this work, we take advantage of the all sky-surveying capabilities of the Large Area Telescope on board Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to study the whole Palomar sample of LLAGN in γ-rays. Precisely, the four radio-brightest LLAGN in the sample are identified as significant γ-ray emitters, all of which are recognized as powerful Fanaroff–Riley I galaxies. These results suggest that the presence of powerful radio jets is of substantial importance for observing a significant γ-ray counterpart even if these jets are misaligned with respect to the line of sight. We also find that most of the X-ray-brightest LLAGN do not have a significant γ-ray and strong radio emission, suggesting that the X-rays come mainly from the accretion flow in these cases. A detailed analysis of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of NGC 315 and NGC 4261, both detected in γ-rays, is provided where we make a detailed comparison between the predicted hadronic γ-ray emission from a radiatively inefficient accretion flow (RIAF) and the γ-ray emission from a leptonic jet-dominated synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model. Both SEDs are better described by the SSC model, while the RIAF fails to explain the γ-ray observations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 490 (4) ◽  
pp. 4606-4621
Author(s):  
Bidisha Bandyopadhyay ◽  
Fu-Guo Xie ◽  
Neil M Nagar ◽  
Dominik R G Schleicher ◽  
Venkatessh Ramakrishnan ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), now with its first ever image of the photon ring around the supermassive black hole of M87, provides a unique opportunity to probe the physics of supermassive black holes through Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), such as the existence of the event horizon, the accretion processes as well as jet formation in low-luminosity AGNs (LLAGNs). We build a theoretical model that includes an advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF) with emission from thermal and non-thermal electrons in the flow and a simple radio jet outflow. The predicted spectral energy distribution (SED) of this model is compared to sub-arcsec resolution observations to get the best estimates of the model parameters. The model-predicted radial emission profiles at different frequency bands are used to predict whether the inflow can be resolved by the EHT or with telescopes such as the Global 3-mm VLBI array (GMVA). In this work the model is initially tested with high-resolution SED data of M87 and then applied to our sample of five galaxies (Cen A, M84, NGC 4594, NGC 3998, and NGC 4278). The model then allows us to predict if one can detect and resolve the inflow for any of these galaxies using the EHT or GMVA within an 8 h integration time.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
pp. 1650006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Zhao ◽  
Qiang Yuan ◽  
Xiao-Jun Bi ◽  
Feng-Rong Zhu ◽  
Huan-Yu Jia

The detectability of active galactic nuclei (AGN), a major class of [Formula: see text]-ray emitters in the sky, by the newly planned Chinese project, Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), is investigated. The expectation is primarily based on the AGN catalog of Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT), with an extrapolation to the very high energy (VHE) range taking into account the absorption effect by the extragalactic background light (EBL). It is found that LHAASO may have the potential to detect more than several tens of the Fermi detected AGN, basically BL Lacertaes, with one-year sky survey. The capability of measuring the energy spectrum and light curve are also discussed.


2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (29) ◽  
pp. 7009-7011
Author(s):  
◽  
N. GIGLIETTO

GLAST, the Gamma-ray Large Area Telescope, is a satellite-based experiment able to measure the cosmic gamma-ray flux in the energy range between 20 MeV and 300 GeV or above. The sensitivity is more than 30 times respect to EGRET and the good spatial and time resolution over a large field of view let us to cover a large variety of high energy phenomena. In particular GLAST will be able to study both diffuse emission and point-like gamma ray sources, including active galactic nuclei, gamma ray bursts, pulsars and supernova remnants. In addition, the potentialities of GLAST to explore rare or exotic phenomena like supersymmetric dark matter annihilations will be shown. The present knowledge of the science opportunities that the GLAST experiment can explore will be completed with the detector description and the current status of the experiment.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (06) ◽  
pp. 841-848
Author(s):  
F. TAVECCHIO

Blazars, radio-loud active galactic nuclei with the relativistic jet closely aligned with the line of sight, dominate the extragalactic sky observed at gamma-ray energies, above 100 MeV. We discuss some of the emission properties of these sources, focusing in particular on the "blazar sequence" and the interpretative models of the high-energy emission of BL Lac objects.


Galaxies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Yoshiyuki Inoue ◽  
Dmitry Khangulyan ◽  
Akihiro Doi

To explain the X-ray spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN), non-thermal activity in AGN coronae such as pair cascade models has been extensively discussed in the past literature. Although X-ray and gamma-ray observations in the 1990s disfavored such pair cascade models, recent millimeter-wave observations of nearby Seyferts have established the existence of weak non-thermal coronal activity. In addition, the IceCube collaboration reported NGC 1068, a nearby Seyfert, as the hottest spot in their 10 yr survey. These pieces of evidence are enough to investigate the non-thermal perspective of AGN coronae in depth again. This article summarizes our current observational understanding of AGN coronae and describes how AGN coronae generate high-energy particles. We also provide ways to test the AGN corona model with radio, X-ray, MeV gamma ray, and high-energy neutrino observations.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Xiang Liu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Ning Chang ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
Lang Cui ◽  
...  

Two dozens of radio loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have been observed with Urumqi 25 m radio telescope in order to search for intra-day variability (IDV). The target sources are blazars (namely flat spectrum radio quasars and BL Lac objects) which are mostly selected from the observing list of RadioAstron AGN monitoring campaigns. The observations were carried out at 4.8 GHz in two sessions of 8–12 February 2014 and 7–9 March respectively. We report the data reduction and the first results of observations. The results show that the majority of the blazars exhibit IDV in 99.9% confidence level, some of them show quite strong IDV. We find the strong IDV of blazar 1357 + 769 for the first time. The IDV at centimeter-wavelength is believed to be predominately caused by the scintillation of blazar emission through the local interstellar medium in a few hundreds parsecs away from Sun. No significant correlation between the IDV strength and either redshift or Galactic latitude is found in our sample. The IDV timescale along with source structure and brightness temperature analysis will be presented in a forthcoming paper.


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