Anatomy of helical relativistic jets: The case of S5 0836+710

TL;DR

This paper investigates the physical nature of helical structures in extragalactic jets, specifically in quasar S5 0836+710, proposing that observed ridge-lines correspond to pressure maxima caused by helical wave patterns, explaining jet misalignments and superluminal speeds.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking observed jet ridge-lines to pressure maxima from helical waves, supported by multi-frequency VLBI data, offering new insights into jet structure and dynamics.

Findings

Observed structures are physical, not artifacts.

Ridge-lines correspond to pressure maxima in jets.

Helical wave patterns explain jet misalignments and superluminal motions.

Abstract

Helical structures are common in extragalactic jets. They are usually attributed in the literature to periodical phenomena in the source (e.g., precession). In this work, we use VLBI data of the radio-jet in the quasar S5 0836+710 and hypothesize that the ridge-line of helical jets like this corresponds to a pressure maximum in the jet and assume that the helically twisted pressure maximum is the result of a helical wave pattern. For our study, we use observations of the jet in S5 0836+710 at different frequencies and epochs. The results show that the structures observed are physical and not generated artificially by the observing arrays. Our hypothesis that the observed intensity ridge-line can correspond to a helically twisted pressure maximum is confirmed by our observational tests. This interpretation allows us to explain jet misalignment between parsec and kiloparsec scales when the viewing angle is small, and also brings us to the conclusion that high-frequency observations may show only a small region of the jet flow concentrated around the maximum pressure ridge-line observed at low frequencies. Our work provides a potential explanation for the apparent transversal superluminal speeds observed in several extragalactic jets by means of transversal shift of an apparent core position with time.