Authors
Markos Georganopoulos, Demosthenes Kazanas
Publication date
2004/3/4
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Volume
604
Issue
2
Pages
L81
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Description
A puzzling feature of the Chandra-detected quasar jets is that their X-ray emission decreases faster along the jet than their radio emission, resulting in an outward-increasing radio–to–X-ray ratio. In some sources this behavior is so extreme that the radio emission peak is located clearly downstream of that of the X-rays. This is a rather unanticipated behavior given that the inverse Compton nature of the X-rays and the synchrotron radio emission are attributed to roughly the same electrons of the jet's nonthermal electron distribution. In this Letter we show that this morphological behavior can result from the gradual deceleration of a relativistic flow and that the offsets in peak emission at different wavelengths carry the imprint of this deceleration. This notion is consistent with another recent finding, namely, that the jets feeding the terminal hot spots of powerful radio galaxies and quasars are still relativistic with Lorentz …
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