Landing page for project EH038

Low-luminosity AGNs (LLAGNs) constitute a dominant population of galaxies in the local universe, and their weak activities are believed to be due to the fuel-deficient central supermassive black holes (SMBH). LLAGNs thus provide an opportunity to study the physics of SMBH at low accretion rates, however, observational properties of jets generated by LLAGNs are still poorly understood because of their intrinsic weakness. Here we propose deep EVN+eMERLIN imaging for a sample of nearby LLAGN jets at 1.7GHz. Our goal is to reveal the detailed jet structures extensively from a few to 100s mas scales (~1000-100000 Schwarzschild radii) at an unprecedented image quality, and then to accurately determine the jet collimation profile that is key to understand the jet formation mechanisms. EVN+eMERLIN is the best instrument for our purpose thanks to the high-resolution, high-sensitivity and short-spacing capabilities at low frequencies. Besides, we are also conducting a complementary high-frequency (22/43/86GHz) program on the same targets with the East Asian VLBI Network. A combined analysis of these data helps understand a broad range of astrophysical topics from galaxy-SMBH coevolution/feedback to horizon-scale SMBH study with the Event Horizon Telescope.

This data is part of the archive of VLBI data maintained by JIVE on behalf of the EVN, a network of radio telescopes located primarily in Europe and Asia, with additional antennas in South Africa. The EVN archive itself has the DOI https://doi.org/10.17616/R3Z197