The Global Jet Structure of the Archetypical Quasar 3C 273
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galaxies-06-00015.pdf
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1.67 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
0010f15c9801eda37fa5b51945f430b6
Author(s)
Asada, Keiichi
Nakamura, Masanori
Hada, Kazuhiro
Nagai, Hiroshi
Lonsdale, Colin John
Fish, Vincent
Akiyama, Kazunori
Fish, Vincent L.
Lonsdale, Colin John
Date Issued
January 2018
Journal
Galaxies
Publisher
MDPI AG
Citation
Akiyama, Kazunori et al. "The Global Jet Structure of the Archetypical Quasar 3C 273." Galaxies 6, 1 (January 2018): 15 © 2018 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
A key question in the formation of the relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is the collimation process of their energetic plasma flow launched from the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Recent observations of nearby low-luminosity radio galaxies exhibit a clear picture of parabolic collimation inside the Bondi accretion radius. On the other hand, little is known of the observational properties of jet collimation in more luminous quasars, where the accretion flow may be significantly different due to much higher accretion rates. In this paper, we present preliminary results of multi-frequency observations of the archetypal quasar 3C 273 with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 1.4, 15, and 43 GHz, and Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) at 1.6 GHz. The observations provide a detailed view of the transverse structure resolved on a broad range of spatial scales from sub-parsec to kilo parsecs, allowing us to profile the jet width as a function of the distance from the core for the first time in jets of bright quasars. We discovered a transition from a parabolic stream to a conical stream, which has been seen in much lower-luminosity radio galaxies. The similarity in the profile to the much lower-powered radio galaxy M87 suggests the universality of jet collimation among AGNs with different accretion rates. Keywords: galaxies: active; galaxies: individual (3C 273); galaxies: jets; radio continuum: galaxies; techniques: high angular resolution; techniques: interferometric
MIT Department
Haystack Observatory
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies6010015
