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Dual and off-nucleus active supermassive black holes are expected to be common in the hierarchical structure formation paradigm, but their identification at parsec scales remains a challenge due to strict angular resolution requirements. We conducted a systematic study using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) to examine 23 radio-bright candidate dual and off-nucleus quasars. The targets are selected by a novel astrometric technique (varstrometry) from Gaia, aiming to identify dual or off-nucleus quasars at (sub)kiloparsec scales. Among these quasars, eight exhibit either multiple radio components or significant (>3σ) positional offsets between the VLBA and Gaia positions. The radio emission from the three candidates, which exhibit multiple radio components, is likely to originate from small-scale jets based on their morphology. Among the remaining five candidates with significant VLBA-Gaia offsets, three are identified as potential dual quasars at parsec scales, one is likely attributed to small-scale jets, and the origin of the last candidate remains unclear. We explore alternative explanations for the observed VLBA-Gaia offsets. We find no evidence for optical jets at kiloparsec scales, nor any contamination to Gaia astrometric noise from the host galaxy; misaligned coordinate systems are unlikely to account for our offsets. Our study highlights the promise of the varstrometry technique in discovering candidate dual or off-nucleus quasars and emphasizes the need for further confirmation and investigation to validate and understand these intriguing candidates.

 

Unexpectedly strong X-ray emission from extragalactic radio jets on kiloparsec scales has been one of the major discoveries of Chandra, the only X-ray observatory capable of sub-arcsecond-scale imaging. The origin of this X-ray emission, which appears as a second spectral component from that of the radio emission, has been debated for over two decades. The most commonly assumed mechanism is inverse-Compton upscattering of the cosmic microwave background by very low-energy electrons in a still highly relativistic jet. Under this mechanism, no variability in the X-ray emission is expected. Here we report the detection of X-ray variability in the large-scale jet population, using a novel statistical analysis of 53 jets with multiple Chandra observations. Taken as a population, we find that the distribution of P values from a Poisson model is strongly inconsistent with steady emission, with a global P value of 1.96 × 10−4 under a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test against the expected uniform (0, 1) distribution. These results strongly imply that the dominant mechanism of X-ray production in kiloparsec-scale jets is synchrotron emission by a second population of electrons reaching multi-teraelectronvolt energies. X-ray variability on the timescale of months to a few years implies extremely small emitting volumes much smaller than the cross-section of the jet. 

Over ∼150 resolved, kpc-scale X-ray jets hosted by active galactic nuclei have been discovered with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A significant fraction of these jets have an X-ray spectrum either too high in flux or too hard to be consistent with the high-energy extension of the radio-to-optical synchrotron spectrum, a subtype we identify as Multiple Spectral Component (MSC) X-ray jets. A leading hypothesis for the origin of the X-rays is the inverse-Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background by the same electron population producing the radio-to-optical synchrotron spectrum (known as the IC/CMB model). In this work, we test the IC/CMB model in 45 extragalactic X-ray jets using observations from the Fermi Large Area Telescope to look for the expected high level of gamma-ray emission, utilizing observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) when possible to best constrain the predicted gamma-ray flux. Including this and previous works, we now find the IC/CMB model to be ruled out in a total of 24/45 MSC X-ray jets due to its over-prediction for the observed MeV-to-GeV gamma-ray flux. We present additional evidence against the IC/CMB model, including the relative X-ray-to-radio relativistic beaming in these sources, and the general mismatch between radio and X-ray spectral indexes. Finally, we present upper limits on the large-scale bulk-flow Lorentz factors for all jets based on the Fermi upper limits, which suggest that these jets are at most mildly relativistic.

 

Abstract Previous Ku -band (15 GHz) imaging with data obtained from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) had shown two compact, subparsec components at the location of a presumed kiloparsec-scale radio core in Seyfert galaxy NGC 7674. It was then presumed that these two unresolved and compact components were dual radio cores corresponding to two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) accreting surrounding gas and launching radio-bright relativistic jets. However, utilizing the original VLBA data set used to claim the detection of a binary SMBH, in addition to later multiepoch/multifrequency data sets obtained from both the VLBA and the European very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) network, we find no evidence to support the presence of a binary SMBH. We place stringent upper limits to the flux densities of any subparsec-scale radio cores that are at least an order of magnitude lower than the original VLBI radio-core detections, directly challenging the original binary SMBH detection claim. With this in mind, we discuss the possible reasons for the nondetection of any VLBI radio cores in our imaging, the possibility of a binary SMBH still residing in NGC 7674, and the prospect of future observations shedding further light on the true nature of this active galactic nucleus.