Lost in the curve: Investigating the disappearing knots in blazar 3C 454.3

¹ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain
e-mail: traianou@iaa.es
² Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
³ INAF – Istituto di Radioastronomia, Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁴ Institute for Astrophysical Research, Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA
⁵ Saint Petersburg State University, 7/9 Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg 199034, Russia
⁶ Department of Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702-701, Republic of Korea
⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, 05006 Seoul, Republic of Korea
⁸ Institute of Astrophysics, Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas, Voutes, 7110 Heraklion, Greece
⁹ Department of Physics, University of Crete, 71003 Heraklion, Greece
¹⁰ Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, Avenida Divina Pastora, 7, Local 20, 18012 Granada, Spain
¹¹ Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
¹² Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO, 20014 University of Turku, Finland
¹³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Mississippi, Mississippi 38677, USA

Received: 23 June 2023
Accepted: 11 November 2023

Abstract

One of the most well-known extragalactic sources in the sky, quasar 3C 454.3, shows a curved parsec-scale jet that has been exhaustively monitored with very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) over the recent years. In this work, we present a comprehensive analysis of four years of high-frequency VLBI observations at 43 GHz and 86 GHz, between 2013–2017, in total intensity and linear polarization. The images obtained from these observations enabled us to study the jet structure and the magnetic field topology of the source on spatial scales down to 4.6 parsec in projected distance. The kinematic analysis reveals the abrupt vanishing of at least four new superluminal jet features in a characteristic jet region (i.e., region C), which is located at an approximate distance of 0.6 milliarcsec from the VLBI core. Our results support a model in which the jet bends, directing the relativistic plasma flow almost perfectly toward our line of sight, co-spatially with the region where components appear to stop.