Nearby radio loud AGN and the Unified Model

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution radio observations of a complete sample of nearby radio galaxies to test the unified model of active galactic nuclei, focusing on parsec-scale properties and orientation effects.

Contribution

It provides new VLBA and EVN observations of faint radio cores in a complete sample, enhancing understanding of AGN central engines and the unified model.

Findings

Preliminary results support orientation-based differences in AGN appearance.

High-resolution data reveal core-jet structures in faint radio sources.

The complete sample allows unbiased statistical analysis of AGN properties.

Abstract

The statistical study of the parsec scale properties of radio sources is crucial to get information on the nature of the central engine and to provide the foundations of the current unified theories, suggesting that the appearance of active galactic nuclei depends strongly on orientation. We started a project to observe at sub-arcsec resolution a complete sample of 94 nearby (z<0.1) radio galaxies, the Bologna Complete Sample, which is not affected by any selection effect on the jet velocity and orientation with respect to the line of sight. Up to now, we published our parsec scale analysis of 77/94 sources. Here, we describe the last VLBA observations at 5 GHz and EVN data at 18 cm obtained for the 17 remaining faintest radio core (<5 mJy at 5 GHz in VLA images) BCS sources and we report our preliminary results on the whole complete sample.