Relativistic Beaming and the Intrinsic Properties of Extragalactic Radio Jets

Relations between the observed quantities for a beamed radio jet, apparenttransverse speed and apparent luminosity (beta_app,L), and the intrinsicquantities, Lorentz factor and intrinsic luminosity (gamma,L_o), areinvestigated. The inversion from measured to intrinsic values is not unique,but approximate limits to gamma and L_o can be found using probabilityarguments. Roughly half the sources in a flux density--limited, beamed samplehave a value of gamma close to the measured beta_app. The methods are appliedto observations of 119 AGN jets made with the VLBA at 15 GHz during 1994-2002.The results strongly support the common relativistic beam model for anextragalactic radio jet. The (beta_app,L) data are closely bounded by atheoretical envelope, an aspect curve for gamma=32, L_o= 10^25 W/Hz. This giveslimits to the maximum values of gamma and L_o in the sample: gamma_max about32, and L_o,max ~ 10^26 W/Hz. No sources with both high beta_app and low L areobserved. This is not the result of selection effects due to the observinglimits, which are flux density S>0.5 Jy, and angular velocity mu<4 mas/yr. Manyof the fastest quasars have a pattern Lorentz factor gamma_p close to that ofthe beam, gamma_b, but some of the slow quasars must have gamma_p<

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