Variability of extragalactic X-ray jets on kiloparsec scales

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dc.contributor.authorMeyer, Eileen T.
dc.contributor.authorShaik, Aamil
dc.contributor.authorTang, Yanbo
dc.contributor.authorReid, Nancy
dc.contributor.authorReddy, Karthik
dc.contributor.authorBreiding, Peter
dc.contributor.authorGeorganopoulos, Markos
dc.contributor.authorChiaberge, Marco
dc.contributor.authorPerlman, Eric
dc.contributor.authorClautice, Devon
dc.contributor.authorSparks, William
dc.contributor.authorDeNigris, Natalie
dc.contributor.authorTrevor, Max
dc.date.accessioned2022-07-15T16:04:59Z
dc.date.available2022-07-15T16:04:59Z
dc.date.issued2022-06-14
dc.description.abstractSuper-massive black holes residing at the centres of galaxies can launch powerful radio-emitting plasma jets which reach scales of hundreds of thousands of light-years, well beyond their host galaxies.1 The advent of Chandra, the only X-ray observatory capable of sub-arcsecond-scale imaging, has lead to the surprising discovery of strong X-ray emission from radio jets on these scales.2-4 The origin of this X-ray emission, which appears as a second spectral component from that of the radio emission, has been debated for over two decades.5-9 The most commonly assumed mechanism is inverse Compton upscattering of the Cosmic Microwave Background (IC-CMB) by very low-energy electrons in a still highly relativistic jet.10,11 Under this mechanism no variability in the X-ray emission is expected. Here we report the detection of X-ray variability in the large-scale jet population, using a novel statistical analysis of 53 jets with multiple Chandra observations. Individually 13/53 jets have at least one feature which is variable at the p<0.05 level. Taken as a population, we find that the distribution of p-values from a Poisson model is strongly inconsistent with steady emission, with a global p-value of 1.96×10−4 under a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test against the expected Uniform (0,1) distribution. The inconsistency significantly increases when we exclude core-dominated quasars at high redshift. These results strongly imply that the dominant mechanism of X-ray production in kpc-scale jets is synchrotron emission by a second population of electrons reaching multi-TeV energies. X-ray variability on the time-scale of months to a few years implies extremely small emitting volumes much smaller than the cross-section of the jet.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipE.T.M. acknowledges Chandra Archival Grant 16700615, ADAP grant NNX15AE55G, and NSF grant 1714380. YT and NR acknowledge support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1654349/v1en_US
dc.format.extent43 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.genrepreprintsen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2a0ae-cwiu
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1654349/v1
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/25175
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Physics Department Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Student Collection
dc.rightsThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.en_US
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)*
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.titleVariability of extragalactic X-ray jets on kiloparsec scalesen_US
dc.typeTexten_US
dcterms.creatorhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-7676-9962en_US

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