Superluminal Radio Features in the M87 Jet and the Site of Flaring TeV Gamma-Ray Emission
By C. Cheung, D. Harris, Ł. Stawarz. 2007
172 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Superluminal motion is a common feature of radio jets in powerful γ-ray-emitting active galactic nuclei. Conventionally, the variable emission is assumed to originate near the central supermassive black hole where the jet is launched on parsec scales or smaller. Here we report the discovery of superluminal radio features within a distinct flaring X-ray-emitting region in the jet of the nearby radio galaxy M87 with the Very Long Baseline Array. This shows that these two phenomenological hallmarks—superluminal motion and high-energy variability—are associated, and we place this activity much farther (≥120 pc) from the "central engine" in M87 than previously thought in relativistic jet sources. We argue that the recent excess very high energy TeV emission from M87 reported by the H.E.S.S. experiment originates from this variable superluminal structure, thus providing crucial insight into the production region of γ-ray emission in more distant blazars.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/10751c15a4932610bcdbf11374c93c591c50da1d
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Citations in the corpus
- FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE GAMMA-RAY DETECTION OF THE RADIO GALAXY M87 (2009, background): “Even closer to the core (∼60 pc, projected), the superluminal knot HST-1 (> 4c − 6c; Biretta et al. 1999; Cheung et al. 2007) is a more complex case.”
- Production of TeV Gamma Radiation in the Vicinity of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Giant Radio Galaxy M87 (2007, background): “Note that the recent claim by Cheung et al. (2007) that the central region of M87 is excluded as a site of the TeV emission because of absorption of γ-rays, is misleading.”
- Kinematics of the jet in M 87 on scales of 100–1000 Schwarzschild radii (2016, methodology): “…found a higher apparent velocity in the optical domain (Biretta et al. 1999; Meyer et al. 2013) compared to the radio domain (Biretta et al. 1995; Cheung et al. 2007; Giroletti et al. 2012) 3, indicating that they 3 Giroletti et al. (2012) also discussed a potential faster spine component, and…”
- THE BLACK HOLE MASS IN M87 FROM GEMINI/NIFS ADAPTIVE OPTICS OBSERVATIONS (2011, background): “An important feature in M87’s center is the nearly point-like knot, located about 1′′ off nucleus along the outbound jet, named HST-1 (Harris et al. 2003, Perlman et al. 2003, Cheung et al. 2007, Madrid 2009), which allows us to monitor the telescope’s point spread function (PSF).”
- Spine–sheath layer radiative interplay in subparsec‐scale jets and the TeV emission from M87 (2008, background): “Continuous multifrequency coverage has shown spectacular activity from this knot in the past years (Perlman et al. 2003; Harris et al. 2006, 2007; Cheung et al. 2007).”
- FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF MISALIGNED ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2010, background): “Although bright enough to be detected in each temporal bin, no evidence for variability was found in our analysis of M87, Cen A, and NGC 6251.”
- CONSTRAINING EMISSION MODELS OF LUMINOUS BLAZAR SOURCES (2009, background): “In fact, a role of reconfinement shocks in shaping radiative and morphological properties of blazar jets has been discussed previously by several authors (Jorstad et al. 2001a, 2001b; Cheung et al. 2007; Sikora et al. 2008; Nalewajko & Sikora 2009; Bromberg & Levinson 2009).”
- THE STRUCTURE OF THE M87 JET: A TRANSITION FROM PARABOLIC TO CONICAL STREAMLINES (2011, background): “Another interesting objective is understanding the production of the superluminal components (Biretta et al. 1999; Cheung et al. 2007).”