Episodes Of Jet Activity Research Articles

A JVLA, LOFAR, e-Merlin, VLBA, and EVN study of RBS 797: can binary supermassive black holes explain the outburst history of the central radio galaxy?

The multifaceted central radio galaxy of the cluster RBS 797 shows several episodes of jet activity in multiple directions. We wish to understand the causes behind these dramatic misalignments and measure the timescales of the successive outbursts. We present a multifrequency (144 MHz -- 9 GHz) and multiscale (5 pc -- $50$ kpc) investigation of the central radio galaxy in RBS 797, by means of JVLA, LOFAR (with international stations), e-Merlin, VLBA, and EVN data. We investigate the morphological and spectral properties of the radio lobes, the jets, and the active core. We confirm the co-spatiality of the radio lobes with the four perpendicular X-ray cavities previously discovered. The radiative ages of the east-west lobes ($31.4 Myr) and of the north-south lobes ($32.1 Myr) support a coeval origin of the perpendicular outbursts, which also have similar active phase duration (sim 12 Myr). Based on the analysis of the inner north-south jets (on scales of $ kpc), we (a) confirm the S-shaped jet morphology; (b) show the presence of two hotspots per jet with a similar spectral index; and (c) estimate the age of the twisting north-south jets to be less than $ Myr. Based on these results, we determine that jet precession, with a period sim 9 Myr, half-opening angle sim circ $, and jet advance speed sim 0.01$c$, can explain the properties of the north-south jets. We also find that the synchrotron injection index has steepened from the large, older outbursts ($ to the younger S-shaped jets ($ possibly due to a transition from FR I-like to FR II-like activity. The e-Merlin, VLBA, and EVN data reveal a single, compact core at the heart of RBS 797, surrounded by extended radio emission whose orientation depends on the spatial scale sampled by the data. We explore several engine-based scenarios to explain these results. Piecing together the available evidence, we argue that RBS 797 likely hosts (or hosted) binary active supermassive black holes (SMBHs). The detection of a single component in the VLBA and EVN data is still consistent with this interpretation, since the predicted separation of the binary SMBHs (leq 0.6 pc) is an order of magnitude smaller than the resolution of the available radio data (5 pc).

Jet-enhanced accretion growth of supermassive black holes

We investigate the effect of a disc-driven jet on the accretion growth of cosmological supermassive black holes (SMBHs). The presence of a jet enhances the mass growth rate because for a given luminosity, the mass accretion rate, is higher (or equivalently, the radiative efficiency e_r is lower for a fixed mass accretion rate) than that predicted by standard accretion disc theory. As jets carry away very little of the accreting matter, a larger proportion of the rest mass can reach the black hole during episodes of jet activity. We show quantitatively that the conditions required to grow a rapidly spinning black hole to a mass ~ 10^9 solar masses by redshift z ~ 6, whilst satisfying the observational constraint e_r > 0.1, are considerably less restrictive for jet-enhanced disc accretion than for standard disc accretion, which requires implausibly high super-Eddington accretion rates. Furthermore, jet-enhanced accretion growth offers a viable explanation for the observed correlation between black hole mass and radio-loudness of quasars.