VLBA observations of extremely luminous, young, and highly obscured radio quasars from the WISE‐Radio sample

Abstract

AbstractA snapshot imaging survey with the VLBA at 5 GHz of 90 of the reddest, most obscured quasars with Ultra Luminous InfraRed Galaxy‐level infrared luminosities reveals a range of small jet structures and also unresolved sources. The three highest frequency peakers in the sample show little evidence for any substantial radio emission on scales larger than about 100 pc, based on our VLA data and on archival survey data. These may be very young single‐epoch radio quasar events. Sources with lower peak frequencies, in the gigahertz peaked source (GPSs), tend to have VLBA fluxes that under‐predict the larger scale emission, indicating multiple structures and possibly multiple epochs of jet activity. One GPS source shows evidence for strong absorption at low frequencies, consistent with this hypothesis. Multifrequency and multiresolution imaging of a subset of 12 of the sample with VLA, VLBA, and eMerlin are under analysis.