A radio study of the compact steep-spectrum quasar 3C 2 (0003-003).
Abstract
The authors present VLA and MERLIN maps at a number of frequencies of the compact steep-spectrum quasar 3C 2 (0003-003) which was suspected of being a one-sided source with a steep-spectrum core. The observations, which range in resolution from 0.15 to 1.5 arcsec, show that the source is double lobed and has a flat-spectrum core, but the outer components are located very asymmetrically relative to the core and their surface brightnesses differ by a factor of about 20. To explain the structure of 3C 2, the authors suggest that the oppositely directed beams are deflected by dense clouds in the external medium and that the large observed asymmetry is due to the asymmetric location of the clouds relative to the nucleus coupled with an asymmetry in the dissipation of energy by the beams as they collide with the clouds.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- February 1987
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/224.4.911
- Bibcode:
- 1987MNRAS.224..911S
- Keywords:
-
- Astronomical Maps;
- Quasars;
- Radio Spectra;
- Spectral Energy Distribution;
- Astronomical Spectroscopy;
- Energy Dissipation;
- Magnetic Flux;
- Molecular Clouds;
- Radiant Flux Density;
- Spectral Resolution;
- Astrophysics