For the first time, an international team of scientists used a global network of radio telescopes to witness the narrowing of a quasar jet. According to the findings, the narrowing of the jet is independent of the activity level of the galaxy that launched it.
In the heart of nearly every galaxy is a supermassive black hole. In rare situations, gas falling into a black hole releases massive amounts of energy, resulting in a phenomenon known as a quasar. Quasars produce narrow, collimated jets of material that travel at almost the speed of light. However, how and where quasar jets collimate has long been a mystery.
An international team led by Hiroki Okino, a graduate student at the University of Tokyo, and including members from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kogakuin University, Hachinohe National College of Technology, and Niigata University captured the highest angular resolution image to date of the deepest part of the jet in 3C 273, a bright quasar. The team discovered that the jet emitted by the quasar narrows over a very long distance.
This narrowing section of the jet extends well beyond the area where the black hole's gravity dominates. The findings demonstrate that the jet's structure is comparable to that of jets emitted by neighboring galaxies with a low-brightness active core. This would imply that the jet's collimation is independent of the level of activity in the host galaxy, providing an essential insight into understanding the inner workings of jets.
On November 21, 2022, Okino et al. published "Collimation of the relativistic jet in the quasar 3C 273" in The Astrophysical Journal.
You must be logged in to post a comment.