TANAMI: Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry

Mueller C, Kadler M, Ojha R, Schulz R, Truestedt J, Edwards PG, Ros E, Carpenter B, Angioni R, Blanchard J, Böck M, Burd PR, Doerr M, Dutka MS, Eberl T, Gulyaev S, Hase H, Horiuchi S, Katz U, Krauss F, Lovell JEJ, Natusch T, Nesci R, Phillips C, Ploetz C, Pursimo T, Quick JFH, Stevens J, Thompson DJ, Tingay SJ, Tzioumis AK, Weston S, Wilms J, Zensus JA (2018)

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2018

Journal

Publisher: EDP SCIENCES S A

Book Volume: 610

Article Number: ARTN A1

DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201731455

Abstract

Context. TANAMI is a multiwavelength program monitoring active galactic nuclei (AGN) south of -30 degrees declination including high-resolution very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) imaging, radio, optical/UV, X-ray, and gamma-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 gamma-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 them with the quasi-simultaneous Fermi/LAT gamma-ray data. Furthermore, we study the jet properties of sources which are in positional coincidence with high-energy neutrino events 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 degrees declination at milliarcsecond resolution. We find that gamma-ray loud TANAMI sources tend to be more compact on parsec-scales and have higher core brightness temperatures than gamma-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 gamma-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 gamma-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.

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Germany (DE) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) United States (USA) (US) Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) South Africa (ZA) Radboud University Nijmegen Netherlands (NL) University of Amsterdam Netherlands (NL) Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Australia (AU) Curtin University Australia (AU) Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie / Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy Germany (DE) Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) Netherlands (NL) University of Tasmania (UTAS) Australia (AU) Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG) / Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy Germany (DE) National Institute for Astrophysics / Istituto Nazionale Astrofisica (INAF) Italy (IT) Auckland University of Technology / Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau New Zealand (NZ) Nordic Optical Telescope Spain (ES)

How to cite

APA:

Mueller, C., Kadler, M., Ojha, R., Schulz, R., Truestedt, J., Edwards, P.G.,... Zensus, J.A. (2018). TANAMI: Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 610. https://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201731455

MLA:

Mueller, C., et al. "TANAMI: Tracking Active Galactic Nuclei with Austral Milliarcsecond Interferometry." Astronomy & Astrophysics 610 (2018).

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