https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20136101002
Probing the inner jet of M87; from the jet base to HST-1
1 INAF Istituto di Radioastronomia, Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
2 National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, 181-8588, Japan
a e-mail: hada@ira.inaf.it
Published online: 9 December 2013
The giant radio galaxy M87 accompanies one of the nearest Active-Galactic-Nuclei jets showing the intense radiation through radio to TeV gamma-ray. Its proximity and the large mass of the central black hole provide an excellent advantage to probe the sites of jet formation and gamma-ray production. Here we review some of our recent studies for the inner jet of M87 based on the multi-frequency and multi-epoch VLBI observations, especially focusing on the two remarkable regions i.e., the jet base near the black hole and the peculiar feature HST-1. Our multi-frequency observations with the phase-referencing technique revealed the detailed structure of the jet base region regarding the location of the central engine and the collimation profile. In terms of HST-1, the intense multi-epoch VLBI monitoring constrained the accurate kinematic properties and the structural variations in this complicated feature, together with a possible connection to the gamma-ray activities. At the end of this contribution, we briefly describe our new monitoring project for M87 with VERA, which permits a detailed study on the structural evolution in the jet base region.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
