Ivan Agudo, Alan P. Marscher, Svetlana G. Jorstad, Jose L. Gomez, Manel Perucho, B. Glenn Piner, Maria Rioja, Richard Dodson
We present the results from an ultra-high-resolution 7mm Very Long Baseline
Array (VLBA) study of the relativistic jet in the BL Lacertae object OJ287 from
1995 to 2011 containing 136 total intensity images. Analysis of the image
sequence reveals a sharp jet-position-angle swing by >100 deg. during
[2004,2006], as viewed in the plane of the sky, that we interpret as the
crossing of the jet from one side of the line of sight to the other during a
softer and longer term swing of the inner jet. Modulating such long term swing,
our images also show for the first time a prominent erratic wobbling behavior
of the innermost ~0.4mas of the jet with fluctuations in position angle of up
to ~40 deg. over time scales ~2yr. This is accompanied by highly superluminal
motions along non-radial trajectories, which reflect the remarkable
non-ballistic nature of the jet plasma on these scales. The erratic nature and
short time scales of the observed behavior rules out scenarios such as binary
black hole systems, accretion disk precession, and interaction with the ambient
medium as possible origins of the phenomenon on the scales probed by our
observations, although such processes may cause longer-term modulation of the
jet direction. We propose that variable asymmetric injection of the jet flow;
perhaps related to turbulence in the accretion disk; coupled with hydrodynamic
instabilities, leads to the non-ballistic dynamics that cause the observed
non-periodic changes in the direction of the inner jet.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.4747
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