Catching the radio flare in CTA 102. II. VLBI kinematic analysis

Multifrequency Studies of the Peculiar Quasar 4C +21.35 during the 2010 Flaring Activity

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Catching the radio flare in CTA 102

We performed multifrequency multiepoch Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations of the blazar CTA 102 during its 2006 radio flare, the strongest ever reported for this source. These observations provide an excellent opportunity to investigate the evolution of the physical properties of blazars, especially during these flaring events. We want to study the kinematic changes in the source during the strong radio outburst in April 2006 and test the assumption of a shock-shock interaction. This assumption is based on the analysis and modeling of the single-dish observations of CTA\,102 (Paper I). In this paper we study the kinematics of CTA 102 at several frequencies using VLBI observations.…

Why Have Many of the Brightest Radio-loud Blazars Not Been Detected in Gamma-Rays by Fermi?

We use the complete MOJAVE 1.5 Jy sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to examine the gamma-ray detection statistics of the brightest radio-loud blazars in the northern sky. We find that 23% of these AGNs were not detected above 0.1 GeV by the Fermi-LAT during the four-year 3FGL catalog period partly because of an instrumental selection effect and partly due to their lower Doppler boosting factors. Blazars with synchrotron peaks in their spectral energy distributions located below 10^(13.4) Hz also tend to have high-energy peaks that lie below the 0.1 GeV threshold of the LAT, and are thus less likely to be detected by Fermi. The non-detected AGNs in the 1.5 Jy sample also have significa…

A closer look at the flaring feature in the M87 jet

The radio-loud active galactic nucleus in M 87 hosts a powerful jet fueled by a super-massive black hole in its center. A bright feature 80 pc away from the M 87 core has been reported to show superluminal motions, and possibly to be connected with a TeV flare observed around 2005. To complement these studies and to understand the nature of this feature, we analyzed 2 cm VLBI data from 15 observing runs between 2000 and 2009. This feature is successfully detected at the milli-Jansky level from 2003 to 2007. Our detections show that its milli-arcsecond structure appears to be extended with a steep spectrum, and no compact or rapidly moving features are observed. Our results do not favor a bl…