Radio Core Size of Low-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei under the MAD-jet model

arXiv:2607.21966 · astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.GA · Submitted 2026-07-24 · Read on arXiv

Yue Xu, Fu-Guo Xie

astro-ph.HE, astro-ph.GA

Submitted: 2026-07-24

Comments: 14 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. To appear in ApJ

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

The gist: After decades of efforts, there are now fruitful high-resolution radio observations of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs), and the observed frequency has extended from about 10 GHz up to

Terminology

Abstract

After decades of efforts, there are now fruitful high-resolution radio observations of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs), and the observed frequency has extended from about 10 GHz up to about 200 GHz. In this work, based on a model that combines a magnetically arrested disk (MAD) and a Blandford-Znajek-like jet, we carried out detailed analysis on size and location of the radio core of LLAGNs. The radio core size of nearby LLAGN M104 is re-visited based on this new model. We successfully reproduce a size proportional to nu-1 scaling between 1 GHz and tens of GHz, if more than 50% of electrons in jet follow a power-law (PL) distribution. We further confirm that, at high radio frequencies emission from MAD exceeds that from jet, and a flatter size-frequency slope is observed. The impact of PL electrons in MAD is also investigated. For those L bol/L Edd (3-8) times 10-6 LLAGNs and black hole binaries in their hard state, PL electrons are expected to be highly suppressed due to strong radiative cooling (so-called `synchrotron boiler' effect).

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