AGN astrophysics from comparing radio and Gaia optical astrometry
Abstract
Gaia will open up a huge volume of new parameter space in which to explore the physics of AGN and black hole evolution. We address the question as to how far along the relativistic jets blazar radio, optical and gamma ray emission originated. In some models the optical centroid wander should be detectable as the relative contributions of thermal and non-thermal optical emission change. Black holes powering AGN do not necessarily reside at the centres of their host galaxies; they can be one member of a binary pair or they could have received a kick after binary coalescence. For radio-loud AGN comparison of astrometric radio and and optical positions can reveal such displacements. It is suggested that it would be feasible to do this using Gaia and e-MERLIN for a sample of thousands of elliptical radio galaxies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1301.6873,
title = {AGN astrophysics from comparing radio and Gaia optical astrometry},
author = {Ian Browne},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.6873},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
5 pages, GREAT-ESF workshop on QSO astrophysics, fundamental physics and astrometric cosmology in the Gaia era. Porto, June 2011