A Statistical Description of AGN Jet Evolution from the VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey (VIPS)

Abstract

A detailed analysis of the evolution of the properties of core-jet systems within the VLBA Imaging and Polarimetry Survey (VIPS) is presented. We find a power-law relationship between jet intensity and width that suggests that for the typical jet, little if any energy is lost as it moves away from its core. Using VLA images at 1.5 GHz, we have found evidence that parsec-scale jets tend to be aligned with the direction of emission on kiloparsec scales. We also found that this alignment improves as the jets move farther from their cores on projected scales as small as ~50-100 pc. This suggests that realignment of jets on these projected scales is relatively common. We typically find a modest amount of bending (a change in jet position angle of ~5°) on these scales, suggesting that this realignment may typically occur relatively gradually.