The Most Compact Bright Radio-loud AGN -- II. VLBA Observations of Ten Sources at 43 and 86~GHz

TL;DR

This paper presents high-resolution VLBA observations of ten bright radio-loud AGNs at 43 and 86 GHz, revealing new jet components at sub-parsec scales and providing insights into their inner jet structures.

Contribution

It provides the first high-frequency VLBA images of these bright AGNs, detecting new jet features and analyzing their core brightness temperatures and compactness, enhancing understanding of innermost jet physics.

Findings

Detected new jet components at sub-parsec scales.

Most cores contribute over 60% of total flux.

Sources are suitable as phase calibrators for mm-VLBI.

Abstract

Radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs), hosting powerful relativistic jet outflows, provide an excellent laboratory for studying jet physics. Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) enables high-resolution imaging on milli-arcsecond (mas) and sub-mas scales, making it a powerful tool to explore the inner jet structure, shedding light on the formation, acceleration and collimation of AGN jets. In this paper, we present Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations of ten radio-loud AGNs at 43 and 86~GHz, which were selected from the {\it Planck} catalogue of compact sources and are among the brightest in published VLBI images at and below 15 GHz. The image noise levels in our observations are typically 0.3 mJy beam$^{-1}$ and 1.5 mJy beam$^{-1}$ at 43 and 86 GHz, respectively. Compared with the VLBI data observed at lower frequencies from the literature, our observations with higher resolution (the highest resolution up to 0.07 mas at 86 GHz and 0.18 mas at 43 GHz) and at higher frequencies detected new jet components at sub-parsec scales, offering valuable data for studies of the physical properties of innermost jets. These include compactness factor of the radio structure (the ratio of core flux density to total flux density), and core brightness temperature ($T_{\rm b}$). In all these sources, the compact core accounts for a significant fraction ($> 60\%$) of the total flux density. Their correlated flux density at the longest baselines is higher than 0.16 Jy. The compactness of these sources make them good phase calibrators of mm-wavelength ground-based and space VLBI.