MOJAVE: Monitoring of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments. V. Multi-epoch VLBA Images

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive set of VLBA images of 135 AGN, revealing jet structures and evolution over multiple epochs, primarily focusing on bright, variable blazars to analyze relativistic jet phenomena.

Contribution

It provides the largest multi-epoch VLBA imaging dataset of AGN jets, enabling detailed statistical analysis of jet morphology and relativistic effects.

Findings

94% of sources show one-sided jet morphologies

Five sources have two-sided parsec-scale jets

Most flux density is contained within a few tenths of a milliarcsecond

Abstract

We present images from a long term program (MOJAVE: Monitoring of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments) to survey the structure and evolution of parsec-scale jet phenomena associated with bright radio-loud active galaxies in the northern sky. The observations consist of 2424 15 GHz VLBA images of a complete flux-density limited sample of 135 AGN above declination -20 degrees, spanning the period 1994 August to 2007 September. These data were acquired as part of the MOJAVE and 2 cm Survey programs, and from the VLBA archive. The sample selection criteria are based on multi-epoch parsec-scale (VLBA) flux density, and heavily favor highly variable and compact blazars. The sample includes nearly all the most prominent blazars in the northern sky, and is well-suited for statistical analysis and comparison with studies at other wavelengths. Our multi-epoch and stacked-epoch images show 94% of the sample to have apparent one-sided jet morphologies, most likely due to the effects of relativistic beaming. Of the remaining sources, five have two-sided parsec-scale jets, and three are effectively unresolved by the VLBA at 15 GHz, with essentially all of the flux density contained within a few tenths of a milliarcsecond.