The Jet in M87 from e-EVN Observations

Abstract

One of the most intriguing open questions of today's astrophysics is the one concerning the location and the mechanisms for the production of MeV, GeV, and TeV gamma-rays in AGN jets. M87 is a privileged laboratory for a detailed study of the properties of jets, owing to its proximity, its massive black hole, and its conspicuous emission at radio wavelengths and above. We started on November 2009 a monitoring program with the e-EVN at 5 GHz, during which two episodes of activity at energy E > 100 GeV have occured. We present here results of these multi-epoch observations. The inner jet and HST-1 are both detected and resolved in our datasets. One of these observations was obtained at the same day of the first high energy flare. A clear change in the proper motion velocity of HST-1 is present at the epoch ~2005.5. In the time range 2003 -- 2005.5 the apparent velocity is subluminal, and superluminal (~ 2.7c) after 2005.5.

Proceedings of the Workshop "Fermi meets Jansky - AGN in Radio and Gamma-Rays", Savolainen, T., Ros, E., Porcas, R.W. & Zensus, J.A. (eds.), MPIfR, Bonn, June 21-23 2010. 4 pages 4 figures