Detecting supermassive binary black holes with VLBI - discovery of a ring-structure in 3C454.3

We report the detection of the first VLBI ring-structure around the core of an AGN - around the core of the quasar 3C454.3. This ring-structure starts being visible in VLBI maps around 1996. It expands with an apparent velocity between 0.11±0.01mas/yr and 0.18±0.01mas/yr and dominates the pc-scale structure for at least 14 years. This is the result of a re-analysis of 41 VLBA data sets at six different radio frequencies observed between 1995.57 and 2011.48. We observe a correlation between radio flaring, flux-density variability, a ring-structure and kinematic properties of the jet. Taken together, it is tempting to see a causal connection and to explain all of this geometrically. The kinematic changes as well as the changes in the flaring characteristics might be caused by a change of the angle to the line of sight towards the observer. This behaviour resembles our findings for 0735+178 - with 3C454.3 being the second AGN to reveal kinematic mode changes. These mode changes could be explained by the presence of a supermassive binary black hole. 3C454.3 had been modelled as a binary black hole before.

[1]  Paul S. Smith,et al.  FLARING BEHAVIOR OF THE QUASAR 3C 454.3 ACROSS THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM , 2010, 1003.4293.

[2]  Understanding BL Lac objects Structural & kinematic mode changes in the BL Lac object PKS 0735+178 , 2010, 1002.3531.

[3]  B. Gong.  The non‐ballistic superluminal motion in the plane of the sky , 2008, 0806.2708.

[4]  Bonn,et al.  A Possible Periodicity in the Radio Light Curves of 3C 454.3 , 2007, 0710.1876.

[5]  M. Cohen,et al.  MOJAVE: MONITORING OF JETS IN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI WITH VLBA EXPERIMENTS. XI. SPECTRAL DISTRIBUTIONS , 2014, 1404.0014.

[6]  A. Marscher,et al.  Connections between millimetre continuum variations and VLBI structure in 27 AGN , 2002 .

[7]  A. Marscher,et al.  High-Frequency VLBA Total and Polarized Intensity Images of Gamma-Ray Bright Blazars , 2002 .

[8]  L. Gurvits,et al.  The VSOP 5 GHz Continuum Survey: The Prelaunch VLBA Observations , 2000 .

[9]  J. Carlstrom,et al.  50 MU as resolution VLBI images of AGN's at lambda 3 mm , 1998 .

[10]  S. Doeleman,et al.  A 3 Millimeter VLBI Continuum Source Survey , 1998 .

[11]  A. Kemball,et al.  Continuum VLBI Polarimetry of 3C 454.3 at 43 GHz , 1996 .

[12]  D. H. Roberts,et al.  A 22 GHz VLBI Survey of 140 Compact Extragalactic Radio Sources , 1996 .

[13]  G. Nicolson,et al.  Peculiar variations in the structure of the quasar 3C454.3 , 1987, Nature.

[14]  R. Blandford,et al.  Semidynamical models of radio jets: relativistic beaming and source counts. , 1985 .