Offsets between X-ray and Radio Components in X-ray Jets: The AtlasX

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2212.02061.pdf (9.22 MB)

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https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.02061

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https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2212.02061
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/26541

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UMBC Physics Department
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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0504-6932
 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2040-8666
 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7676-9962

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2022-12-05

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journal articles
preprints
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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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Abstract

The X-ray emission mechanism of powerful extragalactic jets, which has important implications for their environmental impact, is poorly understood. The X-ray/radio positional offsets in individual features of jets provide important clues. Extending the previous work in Reddy et al. 2021, we present a detailed comparison between X-ray maps deconvolved using the Low Count Image Reconstruction and Analysis (LIRA) tool and radio maps of 164 components from 77 Chandra-detected X-ray jets. We detect 94 offsets (57%), with 58 new detections. In FR II-type jet knots, the X-rays peak and decay before the radio in about half the cases, disagreeing with the predictions of one-zone models. While a similar number of knots lack statistically significant offsets, we argue that projection and distance effects result in offsets below the detection level. Similar de-projected offsets imply that X-rays could be more compact than radio for most knots, and we qualitatively reproduce this finding with a ‘moving-knot’ model. The bulk Lorentz factor (Γ) derived for knots under this model is consistent with previous radio-based estimates, suggesting kpc-scale jets are only mildly relativistic. An analysis of X-ray/radio flux ratio distributions does not support the commonly invoked mechanism of X-ray production from inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background but does show a marginally significant trend of declining flux ratio as a function of distance from the core. Our results imply the need for multi-zone models to explain the X-ray emission from powerful jets. We provide an interactive list of our X-ray jet sample at http://astro.umbc.edu/Atlas-X.