Structure and Magnetic Fields in the Precessing Jet System SS 433 II. Intrinsic Brightness of the Jets

Abstract

Deep Very Large Array imaging of the binary X-ray source SS 433, sometimes classified as a microquasar, has been used to study the intrinsic brightness distribution and evolution of its radio jets. The intrinsic brightness of the jets as a function of age at emission of the jet material tau is recovered by removal of the Doppler boosting and projection effects. We find that intrinsically the two jets are remarkably similar when compared for equal tau, and that they are best described by Doppler boosting of the form D^{2+alpha}, as expected for continuous jets. The intrinsic brightnesses of the jets as functions of age behave in complex ways. In the age range 60 < tau < 150 days, the jet decays are best represented by exponential functions of tau, but linear or power law functions are not statistically excluded. This is followed by a region out to tau ~ 250 days during which the intrinsic brightness is essentially constant. At later times the jet decay can be fit roughly as exponential or power law functions of tau.

30 Pages, 11 Figures, Submitted to ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Jets of SS433 on scales of dozens parsecs
• Deceleration of SS433 radio jets
• Structure and Magnetic Fields in the Precessing Jet System SS433 III. Evolution of the Intrinsic Brightness of the Jets from a Deep Multi-Epoch VLA Campaign
• A NuSTAR view of SS433: Precessional evolution of the jet-disk system
• The radio jets of SS 433 at millimetre wavelengths
• Arcsecond-Scale X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy of SS 433 with Chandra HETG