MOJAVE. X. PARSEC-SCALE JET ORIENTATION VARIATIONS AND SUPERLUMINAL MOTION IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

• Published in: The Astronomical journal Vol. 146; no. 5; pp. 1 - 22
• Main Authors: Lister, M L, Aller, M F, Aller, H D, Homan, D C, Kellermann, K I, Kovalev, Y Y, Pushkarev, A B, Richards, J L, Ros, E, Savolainen, T
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.11.2013
• Subjects: ACCELERATION; Active galactic nuclei; Arrays; ASTRONOMY; ASTROPHYSICS; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; BL LACERTAE OBJECTS; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; GALAXY NUCLEI; GHZ RANGE; JETS; Kinematics; LUMINOSITY; Mathematical analysis; ORIENTATION; PERIODICITY; PROPER MOTION; QUASARS; RADIO GALAXIES; RELATIVISTIC RANGE; Sky; Vectors (mathematics); VELOCITY
• ISSN: 0004-6256; 1538-3881; 1538-3881
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/146/5/120

We describe the parsec-scale kinematics of 200 active galactic nucleus (AGN) jets based on 15 GHz Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) data obtained between 1994 August 31 and 2011 May 1. We present new VLBA 15 GHz images of these and 59 additional AGNs from the MOJAVE and 2 cm Survey programs. Nearly all of the 60 most heavily observed jets show significant changes in their innermost position angle over a 12-16 yr interval, ranging from 10[degrees] to 150[degrees] on the sky, corresponding to intrinsic variations of ~0[degrees].5 to ~2[degrees]. We have derived vector proper motions for 887 moving features in 200 jets having at least five VLBA epochs. For 557 well-sampled features, there are sufficient data to additionally study possible accelerations. We find that the moving features are generally non-ballistic, with 70% of the well-sampled features showing either significant accelerations or non-radial motions.