TANAMI: Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry - II. Additional Sources

Date
2017-09-10
Authors
Muller, C
Kadler, M
Ojha, R
Schulz, R
Trustedt, J
Edwards, PG
Ros, E
Carpenter, B
Angioni, R
Blanchard, J
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
EDP Sciences
Abstract

Context. TANAMI is a multiwavelength program monitoring active galactic nuclei (AGN) south of −30◦ declination including highresolution Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) imaging, radio, optical/UV, X-ray and γ-ray studies. We have previously published first-epoch 8.4 GHz VLBI images of the parsec-scale structure of the initial sample. In this paper, we present images of 39 additional sources. The full sample comprises most of the radio- and γ-ray brightest AGN in the southern quarter of the sky, overlapping with the region from which high-energy (> 100 TeV) neutrino events have been found.

Aims. We characterize the parsec-scale radio properties of the jets and compare with the quasi-simultaneous Fermi/LAT γ-ray data. Furthermore, we study the jet properties of sources which are in positional coincidence with high-energy neutrino events as compared to the full sample. We test the positional agreement of high-energy neutrino events with various AGN samples.

Methods. TANAMI VLBI observations at 8.4 GHz are made with Southern-Hemisphere radio telescopes located in Australia, Antarctica, Chile, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Results. Our observations yield the first images of many jets below −30◦ declination at milliarcsecond resolution. We find that γ-ray loud TANAMI sources tend to be more compact on parsec-scales and have higher core brightness temperatures than γ-ray faint jets, indicating higher Doppler factors. No significant structural difference is found between sources in positional coincidence with high-energy neutrino events and other TANAMI jets. The 22 γ-ray brightest AGN in the TANAMI sky show only a weak positional agreement with high-energy neutrinos demonstrating that the > 100 TeV IceCube signal is not simply dominated by a small number of the γ-ray brightest blazars. Instead, a larger number of sources have to contribute to the signal with each individual source having only a small Poisson probability for producing an event in multi-year integrations of current neutrino detectors.

Description
Keywords
galaxies: active -– galaxies: jets -– galaxies: nuclei -– radio continuum: galaxies – techniques: high angular resolution
Source
arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.03091.
DOI
Rights statement
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