PAIS project

Particle Acceleration In Space: jets and hot-spots in radio-galaxies

• Science Background
• Project Outline
• Main Results
• Project members

Main results

The current main results are:

• High (70%) detection rate (Brunetti et al. 2003, MNRAS, 345, 40);
• The large majority of the optical counterparts are found extended over kpc sizes (Prieto, Brunetti & Mack, 2002, Sci, 298, 193; Fig. 3):
• From the highest spatial resolution data (Fig. 2), we are able to derive the spectral energy distribution of individual optical components of the hot-spots (Fig. 3), which will help us to infer on the age and on the reacceleration mechanism in these regions. (click on image to enlarge)

Fig. 1: Examples of extended optical emission in the northern hot-spot of 3C 445 (left) and in the southern hot-spot of 3C 105 (right) (click on image to enlarge)

Fig. 2: Images of 3C 445 South at different resolutions. Radio contours are overplotted on VLT (left) and HST (right) images (click on image to enlarge)


Fig. 3: Spectral energy distribution of the two sub-components of 3C 445 South (click on image to enlarge)