High‐Frequency VLBA Total and Polarized Intensity Images of Gamma‐Ray Bright Blazars

Abstract

We present Very Long Baseline Array images of 42 -ray bright blazars, including 36 with polarization vectors, obtained during the course of a multiepoch monitoring program. Each object was observed at either 43 or 22 GHz, with some objects observed at both frequencies and/or at 15 or 8.4 GHz. The morphologies are varied, with some of the blazars displaying long, thin jets, others short, broad jets, and still others contain-ing cores with only very weak features that are probably knots in faint jets. The polarization of the cores ranges from less than 1% to 8.6%, with electric vector position angles (EVPAs) that are split between nearly parallel and nearly transverse to the jet axis. The polarization of knots in the jets covers a much broader range, from less than 2% to tens of percent. The EVPA of the brightest compact feature in each jet ranges from 0 to 80 from the jet position angle, with roughly half measuring less than 20 . The distribution is con-sistent with intrinsically oblique magnetic fields whose observed directions are altered by relativistic aberra-tion.