2004/06/03 by F. Tavecchio, L. Maraschi, R. M. Sambruna +4 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astrophysical jet #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Blazar #Connection (principal bundle) #Equipartition theorem #Galaxy #Gamma ray #Geometry #Jet (fluid) #Mechanics #Neutrino Physics Research #Physics #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Scale (ratio) #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/422985
published as Astrophys.J. 614 (2004) 64-68 · 4 figures, accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2004/06/03 · openalex publication_date 2004/10/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The Chandra discovery of bright X-ray emission from kiloparsec-scale jets allows insight into the physical parameters of the jet flow at large scales. At the opposite extreme, extensive studies of the inner relativistic jets in blazars with multiwavelength observations yield comparable information on subparsec scales. In the framework of simple radiation models for the emission regions we compare the physical parameters of jets on these two very different scales in the only two well-studied blazars for which large-scale emission has been resolved by Chandra . Notably, we find that the relativistic Doppler factors and powers derived independently at the two scales are consistent, suggesting that the jet does not suffer severe deceleration or dissipation. Moreover, the internal equipartition pressures in the inner jet and in the external X-ray-bright knots scale inversely with the jet cross section as expected in the simple picture of a freely expanding jet in equipartition.