Understanding the formation of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei remains an elusive problem 1 .This is partly because observational tests of jet formation models suffer from the limited angular resolution of ground-based very-long-baseline interferometry that has thus far been able to probe the structure of the jet acceleration and collimation region in only two sources 2,3 . Here, we report observations of 3C84 (NGC 1275)-the central galaxy of the Perseus cluster-made with an interferometric array including the orbiting radio telescope of the RadioAstron 4 mission. The data transversely resolve the edge-brightened jet in 3C84 only 30 μas from the core, which is ten times closer to the central engine than was possible in previous ground-based observations 5 and allows us to measure the jet collimation profile from ~102 to ~104 gravitational radii (r g) from the black hole. The previously found 5, almost cylindrical jet profile on scales larger than a few thousand r g is seen to continue at least down to a few hundred r g from the black hole, and we find a broad jet with a transverse radius of â‰250 r g at only 350 r g from the core. This implies that either the bright outer jet layer goes through a very rapid lateral expansion on scales â‰102 r g or it is launched from the accretion disk.
A wide and collimated radio jet in 3C84 on the scale of a few hundred gravitational radii / Giovannini, G.; Savolainen, T.; Orienti, M.; Nakamura, M.; Nagai, H.; Kino, M.; Giroletti, M.; Hada, K.; Bruni, G.; Kovalev, Y.Y.; Anderson, J.M.; D'Ammando, F.; Hodgson, J.; Honma, M.; Krichbaum, T.P.; Lee, S.-S.; Lico, R.; Lisakov, M.M.; Lobanov, A.P.; Petrov, L.; Sohn, B.W.; Sokolovsky, K.V.; Voitsik, P.A.; Zensus, J.A.; Tingay, S.. - In: NATURE ASTRONOMY. - ISSN 2397-3366. - STAMPA. - 2:6(2018), pp. 472-477. [10.1038/s41550-018-0431-2]
A wide and collimated radio jet in 3C84 on the scale of a few hundred gravitational radii
Giovannini, G.
;Lico, R.;
2018
Abstract
Understanding the formation of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei remains an elusive problem 1 .This is partly because observational tests of jet formation models suffer from the limited angular resolution of ground-based very-long-baseline interferometry that has thus far been able to probe the structure of the jet acceleration and collimation region in only two sources 2,3 . Here, we report observations of 3C84 (NGC 1275)-the central galaxy of the Perseus cluster-made with an interferometric array including the orbiting radio telescope of the RadioAstron 4 mission. The data transversely resolve the edge-brightened jet in 3C84 only 30 μas from the core, which is ten times closer to the central engine than was possible in previous ground-based observations 5 and allows us to measure the jet collimation profile from ~102 to ~104 gravitational radii (r g) from the black hole. The previously found 5, almost cylindrical jet profile on scales larger than a few thousand r g is seen to continue at least down to a few hundred r g from the black hole, and we find a broad jet with a transverse radius of â‰250 r g at only 350 r g from the core. This implies that either the bright outer jet layer goes through a very rapid lateral expansion on scales â‰102 r g or it is launched from the accretion disk.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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