Revisiting 3C 279 jet morphology with space VLBI at 26 microarcsecond resolution

Abstract

We present observations of the blazar 3C 279 at 22 GHz using the space VLBI mission RadioAstron on 2018 January 15. Images in both total intensity and fractional polarization are reconstructed using RML method implemented in the eht-imaging library. The electric vector position angles are found to be mostly aligned with the general jet direction, suggesting a predominantly toroidal magnetic field, in agreement with the presence of a helical magnetic field. Ground-space fringes were detected up to a projected baseline length of $\sim 8$G$\lambda$, achieving the angular resolution of around 26$\mu$as. The fine-scale structure of the relativistic jet is found in our study extending to a projected distance of $\sim 180$ parsec from the radio core. However, the filamentary structure reported by previous RadioAstron observations of 2014 is not detected in our current study. We discuss potential causes for this phenomenon, together with a comparison using public 43 GHz data from the BEAM-ME program, showing a significant drop in the jet's total intensity. The optically thick core is observed with a brightness temperature of $1.6\times 10^{12}$ K, consistent with equipartition between the energy densities of the relativistic particles and the magnetic field. This yields an estimated magnetic field strength of 0.2 G.

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