Extragalactic Radio Sources: Jet/Lobe Internal Pressure and Consequences
Ezeugo Jeremiah Chukwuemerie *
Department of Physics and Industrial Physics, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
In this work, we use analytical methods to describe expansion of Extragalactic Radio Sources (EGRS). Result shows that source size expansion depends on the following parameters: age of the source, lobe internal pressure, ambient medium density, and angle of observation.
Moreover, from the analyses, we have shown that the obtained results, and , suggestively implies that and . This shows that since , jet internal pressure exceeds the lobe’s internal pressure. Therefore, for a typical EGRS, this simply indicates that ambient medium density is higher in the jet region than in the region of the lobe. This is expected since the ambient density thins out from the central core to the region where lobe is located. It is in consonance with the notion that for large extended EGRS, lobes are located outside the host galaxies rather than within the host galaxies. Moreover, we can conclude from these results that compact steep spectrum sources have denser ambient medium than their more extended counterparts.
Keywords: Radio sources, ambient density, radio jet, radio lobe, source age, galaxies