Bent Jets in Radio Quasars

Abstract

How is energy transported out from the central engine in quasars and radio galaxies to the distant radio lobes? This problem has been around since the early discovery of classical double radio sources, and is still not answered in detail. The idea of relativistic beams was first suggested by Martin Rees as a means of transporting plasma out of the nucleus (Rees, 1971, Blandford and Rees, 1974). This idea gained support first from the discovery of hot spots in the radio lobes of these large classical double sources, and later by observations of the beams themselves in radio galaxies. As more jets were observed, it became obvious that they were often curved, serpentine, or even sharply bent. This behavior has been modeled as precession of the central nozzle (Bridle et al., 1976, Ekers et al., 1978), as nuclear refraction (Henriksen et al., 1981), as a growing plasma instability (Hardee, 1981) and as various combinations of the above. At the present time, it seems safest to conclude that there are some examples of each of these processes known.