MOJAVE. XII. Acceleration of blazar jets Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Homan D.C.
  2. Lister M.L.
  3. Kovalev Y.Y.
  4. Pushkarev A.B.
  5. Savolainen T.,Kellermann K.I.
  6. Richards J.L.
  7. Ros E.
  8. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We report on the acceleration properties of 329 features in 95 blazar jets from the MOJAVE Very Long Baseline Array program. Nearly half the features and three-quarters of the jets show significant changes in speed and/or direction. In general, apparent speed changes are distinctly larger than changes in direction, indicating that changes in the Lorentz factors of jet features dominate the observed speed changes rather than bends along the line of sight. Observed accelerations tend to increase the speed of features near the jet base, <~10-20pc projected, and decrease their speed at longer distances. The range of apparent speeds at a fixed distance in an individual jet can span a factor of a few, indicating that shock properties and geometry may influence the apparent motions; however, we suggest that the broad trend of jet features increasing their speed near the origin is due to an overall acceleration of the jet flow out to deprojected distances of the order of 10^2^pc, beyond which the flow begins to decelerate or remains nearly constant in speed. We estimate intrinsic rates of change of the Lorentz factors in the galaxy frame of the order of {sdot}{Gamma}/{Gamma}~=10^-3^ to 10^-2^/yr, which can lead to total Lorentz factor changes of a factor of a few on the length scales observed here. Finally, we also find evidence for jet collimation at projected distances of <~10pc in the form of the non-radial motion and bending accelerations that tend to better align features with the inner jet.

Keywords
  1. active-galactic-nuclei
  2. radio-continuum-emission
  3. surveys
  4. quasars
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2015ApJ...798..134H
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/798/134
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/798/134
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.17980134

Access

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http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/798/134
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https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/798/134/blazars?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/798/134/blazars?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/798/134/blazars?

History

2015-06-30T07:22:41Z
Resource record created
2015-06-30T07:22:41Z
Created
2025-05-14T20:08:53Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr