Bendings of radio jets in BL Lacertae objects I: EVN and MERLIN observations

Details Bendings of radio jets in BL Lacertae objects I: EVN and MERLIN observations Bendings of radio jets in BL Lacertae objects I: EVN and MERLIN observations

2001-11-14

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0111279v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

12 pages, 9 figures, latex, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics

Scientific paper

10.1051/0004-6361:20011460

Several blazars, and BL Lac objects in particular, show a misalignment between the jet orientation on parsec and kiloparsec scales. Some authors (i.e. Conway & Murphy, 1993) have attempted to explain this behaviour invoking helical jets for misalignment angles around 90$\degr$, showing how in this case there are interesting implications for the understanding of the medium into which the jet is expanding. By comparing sensitive VLA observations (Cassaro et al., 1999) with images available in the literature for the BL Lac objects from the 1-Jy Sample (Stickel et al., 1991), it is clear that there is a wide range of misalignments between the initial jet direction and the kpc-scale jet, when detected. We have carried out VLBI observations of these BL Lac objects, in order to investigate the spatial evolution of the radio jets from few tens to hundreds of mas, and to search for helical jets in this class of sources. We present here the first dataset obtained from EVN+MERLIN observations at 5 GHz for seven objects. From these observations we never have a clear detection of helical jets, we only have a possible signature of their presence in 2 objects. In only one of the sources with a misalignment angle around 90$\degr$ the presence of helical jets can be ruled out. This implies that it is not possible to invoke helical jets to explain the morphology of all the sources showing a misalignment of about 90$\degr$ between the parsec and the kiloparsec scale jets.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Bendings of radio jets in BL Lacertae objects I: EVN and MERLIN observations does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Bendings of radio jets in BL Lacertae objects I: EVN and MERLIN observations, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Bendings of radio jets in BL Lacertae objects I: EVN and MERLIN observations will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-355344