Proposal code

w044

Proposal title

Rapid Structural Variability in the Inner Jets of Intraday Variable Sources

The

Investigators and their

Affiliations

P.I. T.P. Krichbaum MPIfR, Bonn
A. Witzel MPIfR, Bonn
A. Kraus MPIfR, Bonn
A. Lobanov MPIfR, Bonn
J.A. Zensus MPIfR, Bonn

Proposal Abstract

Intraday variable radio sources exhibit derived brightness temperatures of up to 10^{18-19} K. They show correlated rapid flux density variations in all bands of their spectrum (radio- to gamma-rays), indicating that the emitting regions are smaller than typically 1 lightday (corresponding to micro-arcsec sizes). Thus this class of objects is ideally suited for highest angular resolution studies using space-VLBI. With this proposal we focus on detecting structural variations on particularly short time scales. We propose to image the sub-pc scale jets of a small sample of ultra-compact IDV-sources with VSOP at 5 GHz at 3 epochs, 2 of them spaced at intra-day intervals (12-48 hrs). We intend to search for rapid polarization changes of the jet components and for unexpected fast relativistic effects with 10 <= D <= 100 (D: Doppler-factor). All target sources are sufficiently compact and polarized at 5 GHz.

The full Cover Sheets (compressed post-script, typically 50kbytes) can be retrieved. Note that many proposals were reduced in extent by the Scientific Review Committee (e.g. by reducing the number of experiments), however the Cover Sheets contain the full proposal as submitted. Also note that AO2 proposals were submitted in May 1998, and information such as affiliations and contact details has changed for some proposers since that time. The Cover Sheets (and the details on this page, which were derived from the Cover Sheets) may therefore have changed.