Oral Presentation

Probing the innermost regions of AGN jets and their magnetic fields with RadioAstron at tens of microarcseconds resolution

Author(s): Gómez, J. L., Lobanov, A. P., Bruni, G., Kovalev, Y. Y., Marscher, A. P., Jorstad, S. G., Anderson, J. M., et al.

Presenter: José L. Gómez (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC)

We present polarimetric 1.3 cm RadioAstron, 7 mm global-VLBI, and 3 mm GMVA observations of a sample of blazars probing the innermost jet regions up to a record angular resolution of 21 microarcseconds. Comparison of the total and polarized emission across these wavebands allows us to determine the magnetic field structure and strength in the vicinity of the central black hole through Faraday rotation and opacity analysis. It allows us also to probe the brightness temperature, angular sizes, and spectra across and along the innermost jet to determine the physical parameters of the fluid (velocity field, energy density) and that of the non-thermal electron population. This information is used to study how AGN jets are formed, accelerated and collimated, and what is the role played by the magnetic field in these processes.