Superluminal non-ballistic jet swing in the quasar NRAO 150 revealed by mm-VLBI

Abstract

NRAO 150 -a compact and bright radio to mm source showing core/jet structure- has been recently identified as a quasar at redshift z=1.52 through a near-IR spectral observation. To study the jet kinematics on the smallest accessible scales and to compute the first estimates of its basic physical properties, we have analysed the ultra-high-resolution images from a new monitoring program at 86 GHz and 43 GHz with the GMVA and the VLBA, respectively. An additional archival and calibration VLBA data set, covering from 1997 to 2007, has been used. Our data shows an extreme projected counter-clock-wise jet position angle swing at an angular rate of up to ~11 deg./yr within the inner ~31 pc of the jet, which is associated with a non-ballistic superluminal motion of the jet within this region. The results suggest that the magnetic field could play an important role in the dynamics of the jet in NRAO 150, which is supported by the large values of the magnetic field strength obtained from our first estimates. The extreme characteristics of the jet swing make NRAO 150 a prime source to study the jet wobbling phenomenon.

Accepted for publication in A&A Letters. 4 pages (including 3 figures) + 3 additional Tables

References in corpus (4)

• The Fifth VLBA Calibrator Survey: VCS5
• 3D Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Magnetized Spine-Sheath Relativistic Jets
• The role of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in the internal structure of relativistic outflows. The case of the jet in 3C 273
• Testing the inverse-Compton catastrophe scenario in the intra-day variable blazar S5 0716+71: II. A search for intra-day variability at millimetre wavelengths with the IRAM 30 m telescope

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Doppler factors, Lorentz factors and viewing angles for quasars, BL Lacertae objects and radio galaxies
• Kinematics of the jet in M87 on scales of 100 -- 1000 Schwarzschild radii
• Kinematics of Parsec-Scale Jets of Gamma-Ray Bright Blazars at 43 GHz during Ten Years of the VLBA-BU-BLAZAR Program
• VLBI-Gaia offsets favor parsec-scale jet direction in Active Galactic Nuclei
• MOJAVE XIX: Brightness Temperatures and Intrinsic Properties of Blazar Jets
• Radio observations of active galactic nuclei with mm-VLBI
• Anatomy of helical relativistic jets: The case of S5 0836+710
• POLAMI: Polarimetric Monitoring of Active Galactic Nuclei at Millimetre Wavelengths. I. The program, calibration, and calibrators data products
• Evidence of internal rotation and a helical magnetic field in the jet of the quasar NRAO150
• The F-GAMMA program: Multi-frequency study of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Fermi era. Program description and the first 2.5 years of monitoring
• Compact Bright Radio-loud AGNs -- III. A Large VLBA Survey at 43 GHz
• Investigating the multiwavelength behaviour of the flat spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 during 2013-2017
• On the location of the supermassive black hole in CTA 102
• Direction of Parsec-Scales Jets for 9220 Active Galactic Nuclei
• High Resolution Radio Astronomy Using Very Long Baseline Interferometry
• Curved jet motion. I. Orbiting and precessing jets
• The physics of the MHD disk-jet transition in binary systems: jetted spiral walls launched from disk spiral arms
• Resolving the inner jet of PKS 1749+096 with super-resolution VLBA images at 7 mm
• A helical magnetic field in quasar NRAO150 revealed by Faraday rotation