VLBA observations of a sample of low-power compact symmetric objects

¹ INAF – Istituto di Radioastronomia, Via P. Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna, Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Via Gobetti 93/2, I-40129 Bologna, Italy
³ INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Strada Osservatorio 20, I-10025 Pino Torinese, Italy

^⋆ Corresponding author: orienti@ira.inaf.it

Received: 17 January 2025
Accepted: 22 April 2025

Abstract

Compact symmetric objects (CSOs) are intrinsically compact extragalactic radio sources that are thought to be the progenitors of classical radio galaxies. To date, evolutionary models have mainly focused on the formation and growth of high-power radio sources, leaving unanswered many questions related to low-power objects, whose relativistic jets are likely more prone to instabilities. We present a new sample of candidate low-power CSOs selected from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey. The main selection criteria are (i) a parsec-scale double radio morphology from archival Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) images and (ii) a VLBA total flux density consistent with that from the FIRST survey, which rules out the presence of significant radio emission extending beyond the parsec scale. The final sample consists of 60 sources with radio luminosities between 10²⁴ and 10²⁷ W Hz⁻¹ at 1.4 GHz and projected linear sizes between 45 and 430 pc, which fill a region in the radio power-size plane that is currently underpopulated. We carried out VLBA observations at 4.98 GHz of a sub-sample of 20 sources among the brighest candidate CSOs with the aim of confirming their classification. We classify 12 sources as CSOs on the basis of their radio structure and spectral index distribution. In two out of the four CSOs with core identification, the asymmetry in the flux density of the outer components is in agreement with light travel time effects, and there is no evidence of jet-cloud interaction. If we assume a simplistic parametric model, most of the sources in the total sample have a jet power of ∼10⁴⁴−10⁴⁵ erg s⁻¹, making their evolutionary paths sensitive to the individual conditions of the jet and its environment.