HST-1 as a Window to the Energetics of the Jet Spine of M87

TL;DR

This paper interprets the optical knot HST-1 in M87's jet as part of the relativistic spine, providing estimates of the jet's power and insights into the central engine's activity over the past few hundred years.

Contribution

It offers a new interpretation of HST-1 as the jet spine and constrains the historical jet power and efficiency of M87's central engine based on multi-frequency imaging data.

Findings

HST-1 is associated with the relativistic jet spine.

Estimated jet power in the recent past is up to 2 x 10^{42} ergs/s.

The jet production efficiency is approximately 3.5%.

Abstract

A new interpretation of the optical knot in the jet of M87, HST-1, is presented. High sensitivity 22 GHz Very Large Array images locate HST-1 to within 6 mas of the jet axis immediately upstream. 1.7 GHz Very Long Baseline Array images of a bright flare in 2005 indicates that the preponderance of emission in the early stages originates in an elongated region that is tilted $12.5^{\circ}$ from the jet axis. The superluminal motion, shape, location and the large jet-aligned optical/UV polarization suggest an identification with the putative relativistic spine of the jet. As such, energy flux estimates for HST-1, $\sim 870$ mas from the nucleus, published in 2006 indicate that the central engine injected $Q_{\rm{spine}}\approx 2.5 \times 10^{41}\rm{ergs/s}$ into the base of the spine $\sim 200$ years earler. Furthermore, previous studies reveal a tubular protonic jet on sub-mas scales that envelopes a low luminosity core, presumably the faint spine base. It was estimated that the central engine injected $Q_{\rm{tubular\,jet}}\approx 6.1\times 10^{41}\rm{ergs/s}$ $\sim 1.5$ years earlier. If one component of the jet is inherently more powerful, a firm constraint on total jet power in the recent past exists. If the emitted jet is inherently dominated by the spine (tubular jet) then the total bilaterally symmetric jet power emitted from the central engine was $<4Q_{\rm{spine}}\approx 1.0 \times 10^{42}\rm{ergs/s}$ ($< 4Q_{\rm{tubular\,jet}}\approx 2.4\times 10^{42}\rm{ergs/s}$) $\sim 200$ ($\sim 1.5$) years earlier. Assuming a nearly constant central engine injected jet power for $\sim 200$ years indicates a total jet power of $\lesssim 2\times 10^{42}$ ergs/s in epochs of modern observation or $\lesssim 3.5\%$ jet production efficiency for an accretion rate of 0.001$M_{\odot}$/yr.