Unveiling the Small-scale Jets in the Rapidly Growing Supermassive Black Hole IZw1
Journal article, 2024
Accretion of black holes at near-Eddington or super-Eddington rates represents the most powerful episode driving black hole growth, potentially occurring across various types of objects. However, the physics governing accretion and jet-disk coupling in such states remains unclear, primarily due to the difficulty in detecting associated jets, which may emit extremely weakly or exhibit episodic behavior. Only a few near/super-Eddington systems have demonstrated radio activity, and it remains uncertain whether jets exist and what their properties are in super-Eddington active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and ultraluminous X-ray sources. This uncertainty stems mainly from the complex radio emission mix, which includes contributions from jets, star formation activity, photoionized gas, accretion disk wind, and coronal activity. In this work, we conducted high-resolution, very long baseline interferometry observations to investigate jets in the highly accreting narrow-line Seyfert I system I Zw 1. Our observations successfully revealed small-scale jets (with a linear size of ∼45 pc) at both 1.5 and 5 GHz, based on the high radio brightness temperature, radio morphology, and spectral index distribution. Additionally, the parsec-scale jet observed in I Zw 1 displays a knotted morphology reminiscent of other sources accreting at similar rates. In summary, the high accretion rates and jet properties observed in the AGN I Zw 1 may support the AGN/X-ray binary analogy in this extreme state.
Author
Xiaolong Yang
Beijing University of Technology
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Space Navigation and Positioning Techniques
Su Yao
Max Planck Society
Luigi C. Gallo
Saint Mary's University
Jun Yang
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory
Luis C. Ho
Beijing University of Technology
Minfeng Gu
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Willem A. Baan
Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON)
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jiri Svoboda
Czech Academy of Sciences
Ran Wang
Beijing University of Technology
Xiang Liu
Chinese Academy of Sciences
X. Y. Hong
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Space Navigation and Positioning Techniques
Xue Bing Wu
Beijing University of Technology
Wei Zhao
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Astrophysical Journal
0004-637X (ISSN) 1538-4357 (eISSN)
Vol. 966 2 151Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Infrastructure
Onsala Space Observatory
DOI
10.3847/1538-4357/ad343c