Science with an ngVLA: High-resolution Imaging of Radio Jets Launched by AGN

TL;DR

This paper discusses how the next-generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) will enable high-resolution imaging of AGN jets, providing new insights into their formation, structure, and evolution, which are vital for understanding galaxy and black hole development.

Contribution

It highlights the potential of ngVLA to bridge existing observational gaps and advance the study of AGN jet physics at intermediate scales.

Findings

ngVLA will image faint radio emissions at 10-100 milliarcsecond scales.

It will enable detailed studies of jet entrainment, deceleration, and collimation.

This will lead to breakthroughs in understanding AGN jet formation and evolution.

Abstract

Jetted plasma outflows from active galactic nuclei (AGN) represent the most energetic phenomena in the known universe, and play a key role in regulating galaxy formation through feedback processes. The JVLA and VLBA have played an indispensable role in understanding the physics of these powerful jets and their environments, via high angular resolution full polarization imaging and astrometric studies. By bridging the current interferometric gap between the JVLA and VLBA with intermediate baselines, the ngVLA offers exciting new opportunities to explore the intermediate regions downstream of the high Lorentz factor pc-scale AGN jets imaged by VLBI, where entrainment, deceleration, collimation and particle acceleration all take place. The ability to image exceedingly faint radio emission on scales of 10s to 100s of milliarcseconds will lead to new breakthroughs in resolving some of the most pressing questions regarding the formation, structure, and evolution of AGN jets. These are in turn crucial for a more complete understanding of the formation of supermassive black holes and galaxies in the early universe and their subsequent evolution.