Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21342209n&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #422.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.242
Other
Scientific paper
A prominent feature of many active galaxies is their relativistic jets. These jets emerge from the nucleus at speeds up to 99.9% of c, and carry energy from the central regions out to distances of hundreds of kiloparsecs. The jets are composed of high-energy plasma that is known to emit via the synchrotron mechanism at radio through infrared energies. However, the emission mechanism is not well constrained at optical X-ray energies, particularly for the most powerful jets, those located in luminous quasars. Multi-waveband observations of a few quasar jets have recently found that a common emission component connects the optical through X-ray bands. In these objects, optical polarimetry provides a powerful test for both the X-ray and optical emission mechanisms. Here we discuss imaging polarimetry of the jet of PKS 1136-135, a luminous quasar at z=0.554, obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope. Our results show that different mechanisms dominate in the optical and X-rays for different regions of the jet. Knot A is highly polarized and so its optical and X-ray emission must be due to synchrotron radiation. However no significant polarization is detected in any other jet polarization, strongly indicating inverse-Comptonization of Cosmic Microwave Background photons as the optical-X-ray emission mechanism. The low polarization also independently rules out synchrotron self-Compton as the X-ray production mechanism in a model-independent way.
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