Pair Plasma Dominance in the Parsec‐Scale Relativistic Jet of 3C 345

Abstract

We investigate whether a parsec-scale jet of 3C 345 is dominated by a normal plasma or an electron-positron plasma. We present a general condition that a jet component becomes optically thick for synchrotron self-absorption by extending the method originally developed by Reynolds and coworkers. The general condition gives a lower limit of the electron number density, with the aid of the surface brightness condition, which enables us to compute the magnetic field density. Comparing the lower limit with another independent constraint for the electron density that is deduced from the kinetic luminosity, we can distinguish the matter content. We apply the procedure to the five components of 3C 345 (C2, C3, C4, C5, and C7) of which angular diameters and radio fluxes at the peak frequencies were obtainable from literature. Evaluating the representative values of Doppler beaming factors by their equipartition values, we find that all the five components are likely dominated by an electron-positron plasma. The conclusion does not depend on the lower cutoff energy of the power-law distribution of radiating particles.