SIMBAD references

2011ApJS..193...15M - Astrophys. J., Suppl. Ser., 193, 15 (2011/March-0)

An X-ray imaging survey of quasar jets: testing the inverse Compton model.

MARSHALL H.L., GELBORD J.M., SCHWARTZ D.A., MURPHY D.W., LOVELL J.E.J., WORRALL D.M., BIRKINSHAW M., PERLMAN E.S., GODFREY L. and JAUNCEY D.L.

Abstract (from CDS):

We present results from continued Chandra X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of a flux-limited sample of flat spectrum radio-emitting quasars with jet-like extended structure. X-rays are detected from 24 of the 39 jets observed so far. We compute the distribution of αrx, the spectral index between the X-ray and radio bands, showing that it is broad, extending at least from 0.8 to 1.2. While there is a general trend that the radio brightest jets are detected most often, it is clear that predicting the X-ray flux from the radio knot flux densities is risky, so a shallow X-ray survey is the most effective means for finding jets that are X-ray bright. We test the model in which the X-rays result from inverse Compton (IC) scattering of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons by relativistic electrons in the jet moving with a high bulk Lorentz factor nearly along the line of sight. Depending on how the jet magnetic fields vary with z, the observed X-ray to radio flux ratios do not follow the redshift dependence expected from the IC-CMB model. For a subset of our sample with known superluminal motion based on VLBI observations, we estimate the angle of the kiloparsec-scale jet to the line of sight by considering the additional information in the bends observed between parsec- and kiloparsec-scale jets. These angles are sometimes much smaller than estimates based on the IC-CMB model with a Lorentz factor of 15, indicating that these jets may decelerate significantly from parsec scales to kiloparsec scales.

Abstract Copyright:

Journal keyword(s): galaxies: active - galaxies: jets - surveys

Simbad objects: 45

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