Exploring Compact Symmetric Objects with Complex Morphologies
Creators
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1.
University of New Mexico
- 2. Grote Reber Doctoral Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
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3.
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
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4.
United States Naval Research Laboratory
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5.
FORTH Institute of Astrophysics
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6.
Stanford University
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7.
Purdue University West Lafayette
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8.
California Institute of Technology
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9.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Abstract
Compact symmetric objects (CSOs) are a unique class of jetted active galactic nuclei defined by subkiloparsec radio emission, showing radio structure on both sides of the central engine. CSOs tend to exhibit little to no relativistic beaming, thereby allowing us to determine their physical characteristics, such as the magnetic field strength and particle energy density. Selected with a literature search, we describe very long baseline interferometry observations, imaging, and analyses of 167 CSO candidates. We identified 65 new bona fide CSOs, thus almost doubling the number of known bona fide CSOs to 144. With our greater breadth of sources, we confirm that edge-dimmed CSOs (CSO-1s) may represent a more diverse population than originally expected. We highlight a number of CSOs with complex morphologies, including candidates for supermassive binary black holes and CSOs that appear to have morphologies akin to wide-angle tail galaxies, which could perhaps indicate that some CSOs are experiencing a galactic merger.
Copyright and License
© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
We thank the anonymous reviewer for providing many helpful suggestions and insightful comments.
This research has made use of the NED, which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and operated by the California Institute of Technology.
This research made use of pandas (W. McKinney 2010, 2011).
This research made use of SciPy (P. Virtanen et al. 2020).
This research made use of matplotlib, a Python library for publication quality graphics (J. D. Hunter 2007).
This research made use of NumPy (C. R. Harris et al. 2020).
Support for this work was provided by the National Science Foundation through award NSF/AST-1835400 and through the Grote Reber Fellowship Program administered by Associated Universities, Inc./National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory are facilities of the U.S. National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
W.M.P. acknowledges that basic research in radio astronomy at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is supported by 6.1 Base funding. Construction and installation of VLITE was supported by the NRL Sustainment Restoration and Maintenance fund.
S.K. was funded by the European Union ERC-2022-STG—BOOTES—101076343. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Software References
This research made use of pandas (W. McKinney 2010, 2011).
This research made use of SciPy (P. Virtanen et al. 2020).
This research made use of matplotlib, a Python library for publication quality graphics (J. D. Hunter 2007).
This research made use of NumPy (C. R. Harris et al. 2020).
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Additional details
Related works
- Is new version of
- Discussion Paper: arXiv:2503.23240 (arXiv)
Funding
- National Science Foundation
- AST-1835400
- Associated Universities, Inc.
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- United States Naval Research Laboratory
- 6.1 Base funding
- European Council
- BOOTES 101076343
Dates
- Accepted
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2025-03-01
- Available
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2025-06-24Published