Free access article

A&A 375, 476-484 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20010907

Development of a two-sided relativistic jet in Cygnus X-3

J. Martí¹, J. M. Paredes² and M. Peracaula<sup>2

1</sup>  Departamento de Física, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad de Jaén, Virgen de la Cabeza 2, 23071 Jaén, Spain
²  Departament d'Astronomia i Meteorologia, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
    e-mail: josep@am.ub.es, mperacau@am.ub.es

(Received 4 May 2001 / Accepted 20 June 2001 )

Abstract
We present multi-epoch radio maps of the microquasar Cygnus X-3 obtained with the Very Large Array (VLA). The observations were carried out as a Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) project triggered by a series of strong (>5 Jy) radio outbursts in September 2000. We find that Cygnus X-3 was well resolved and clearly elongated in the North-South direction at the VLA resolution in the weeks after the triggering events. In particular, the VLA map from our final epoch of observation perfectly shows the development of a two-sided radio jet extending over ~0.05 pc scales. We interpret both the proper motion and the brightness asymmetry between the jet components in the framework of special relativity effects. Assuming a distance of 10 kpc, the true jet velocity that we derive is close to 0.5c with a large angle with the line of sight. The possible connection between the VLA bipolar jets and the elongated one-sided structures observed at milli-arcsecond angular scales is also discussed.

Key words: stars: individual: Cyg X-3 -- ISM: jets and outflows -- X-rays: stars

Offprint request: J. Martí, jmarti@ujaen.es

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© ESO 2001

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