Three in One: The VLBI Radio View of the X-ray Quasar RX J1456.0+5048

TL;DR

This paper investigates the complex radio and X-ray environment of the quasar RX J1456.0+5048, revealing multiple sources with VLBI imaging to clarify their nature and associations.

Contribution

It provides the first VLBI image of one of the radio sources associated with RX J1456.0+5048, clarifying the structure of the multiple sources involved.

Findings

Three distinct radio sources within 2 arcmin of the X-ray source.

Two sources show compact emission detected with VLBI.

First VLBI image of one source at 5 GHz.

Abstract

RX J1456.0+5048 is a prominent X-ray source detected by ROSAT. There is ~100-mJy level radio emission associated with the X-ray source. However, interferometric observations with increasing angular resolution revealed that three distinct objects located within 2 arcmin are responsible for the measured total flux density. Whether these radio sources lining up in the sky are physically associated or just seen close to each other in projection is not immediately clear. In fact, incorrect cross-identification of the X-ray, optical and radio sources can already be found in the literature. Here we summarise the current knowledge about this intriguing group of objects, where two of the three sources show compact radio emission detected with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). We present a VLBI image of one of them for the first time, based on archival European VLBI Network (EVN) data taken at 5 GHz.