- University of Nigeria Research Publications NWEZE, Simon Samson Author PG/M.Sc./87/5481 Radio Emission from SS 433 Jets Title Physical Sciences Faculty Physics and Astronomy Department June, 1989 Date Signature TITLE PAGE RADIO EMISSION FROWSS 433 JETS NIJEZE STMON SAMSON (PG/M.~C/87/5481) DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA, NIGERIA M.SC PROJECT REPOR'i', 1989 CZRTISICATLON I,Jo!ezs, Simon Samson, a Pos tqraduate student j.n the 13ep;llr4ritent of Physics and Astronomy and with the Zegistrak5.on :<~rrnherPG/Ffm:Sc/87/548T has ~af:isfactorily. com~lntedthe requirements for course and research work for th? dcqrw of Waster of Science (II'~.SC. ! ?.n Phlrsics. The :mrk ernbodid in this project r~!:lortts oriqinal ~ndhas not been suhrnitted in part or flu11 for any other di~Tornaur deqree of this nr any other Un-iv~rsi ty, O-..".j,*~*.....l....*.. Dr. $. IJ. ~k&ke Dr. P,N. Okeke, Head of Dcp7.r-tment Supervisor " DEDICATION This project is dedicated to my twin hildren Eyiuche and Amauche-Chubu: TABLE OF CONTEN!t' TITLE PAGE am o APPROVAL PAGE .a. DTDICATION maw TA3LE OF CONTENTS ACSTRACT .ma ACKNO\dLEDGEMENT CHAPTER I 1.00 GE?!ERAL INTRODUCTION 1010 Detection and Identification of the Object At Different bv'avelcncjths OD. Otl-er Unique Objects Within the Galaxy Cyqnus X-3 ... Scnr~?-usX-1 ... SS 433 And Classes of Variable Ern?-ssion Sources ... DeTlni tion of Terms . CI-IAPTER I1 THE GENERAL PROPE2TIES OF SS 433 The Radio Structure of SS 433 and those of Zxtraqalactic Sources ., . .. TI13 !?adio Structure And Radio Flares of SS 433 .a* .. SS 433 And the Associated Supernova !'.emnan t (Y50 ) ... ... The Emission Variahj-lity of SS 433 .. ';_'heRadio Emission (VdriabF 1; ky 1 ... Tlqc O~tlcal.Emission {Varia' ; lity) .. '?'re X-Xay and Gamma-liay Oli.;crvatlons.. 3, (30 Tile f;adio Jets of S5 433 ... 38 3.10 SS 433 Jets And Radio ?mission- 3.20 The Proton Beam CollisLon Model And A~plicationTo SS 433 -.. 58 3,30 Observed And Derived Paramaters or ss 433 ... 60 Eskimatirlq The Radio Fl.ux Density or SS 433 Jets At Different khvelenqths 60 3.50 Estlrnated And Observed Radio Flux Density of SS 133 Jets ... 64 CflA'3TER IV 4mOQ DISCUSSION OF RESULTS a a 66 4-03 Vzriable Magnetic Fields 4.02 S tell-ar Winds 4.03 Vzriation In Gravitatic,nal Potel CHAPTER V 5.00 SUI?II.IARY AND CONCLUSION APPENDIX I ; The Ililliarc-St a-Id Structure of SS 433 ;it Differen. Observations APPEhlDIX Ie : X Typical Extende( Radio Structure of SS 433 Introduction to Appendix I1 istic Flux Density AIJ:JENDIX IIf : AnaLysea Lnalvlaut , Fl-xe Events from the Statistic; &.ta of Appendix IT -11 a P- i ABS TRACT I ttempt is mkde to explain the origin of radio emission from SS 433 bets using f$e inelastic proton beam collision model of I Anyakoha et a1 ( 19 88) . lhe estimated radio flux cknsity obtained compared favourably well with observed values. This result has considerably il luminated two irnportan t astrophysical iss-s . Firstly, the unique nature of variability of rdio emissicn from SS 433 is suitably accounted for. Variability in the jet flux densi ty could be mainly attribu red to corre sponding vari ations in the thermal proton number density in the galactic medium along the jet pa ths. Finally, the general specula tion that astrophysical jets (both galactic and extragalactic) may be governed by common dynamical processes is supported by this result. viii . ACICN OWLE DGEME NT I I I i I lljtroughout tfi4 period of this wo,rk, I got various assistance I in one form or the other from many people too numerous to receive individual mmtim even if I could identify all of them. Nontheless, I an indebted to Dr. P .N . &eke, my supervisor, for his invaluh le assis tmce adencouragement. My special thanks go to Dr. W.M. hyakoha for his very useful coumtents and suggestions. I am also grateful to Professor S .E. Ckoye, Dr.(Mrs) L.I. Otluora, Dr. C.H. McGruder 111, and others in the Department of Physics and Astronony , University of Nigeria, Nsukka, whose cmtributions helped to make this work a reality. Furthermore, I wish to thank the following, D.McCarthy, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C. ; R.T. S hilizzi, Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy, bingeloo; and I. Fe jes , Institute of Geodesy, Cartography, and Remote Sensing, Hungary; all of who made certain material8 available to me on 9. Finally, I me a great deal to the Almighty God for His guidance. ; I I. I a)servati.onalI :asults and Theoretical Predictions by several authors show that SS 433 resenbles, in many respect, sorue powerful extragalactic radio sources. The Bright core and its aligned s tructure , the highly collimated je t-features , and the flux Qnsities observed in both radio, optical and x-rays spectrum are all similar to those of some extragalactic radio sources (see for example Walker et al, 1981, Davidson and McCray, 1980, Rees, 1982, Lamb et a1 1983, Wieler, 1983, Meurs, 1987, Vermeulen, 1988) . Thus, it is the view of many authors that SS 433 may offer unpreaedented clues to the'nature of as tro- physical jets, in general. The mast striking difference between SS 433 and most extra- galactic .radio sources is that the galactic source, (SS 433) , is associaed with time dependent and spatial variab ilities velocirty (v.) md,'k&line of sightinclination of the jets (8) I J I! 11 precisely wown -Rue to various limitations already I out by Lind and Blandford ( 198517- as it-"is- in the case of the galactic source - SS 433. Several sugges tiom and mdels have been put forward to explain the possible jet emission me&anism &d its intriguing vari&ili ty . Some of them however were compounded with unresolved issues between theory and observations (see for exaqle Grindlay et al, 1984, Davidson and McCray, 1980, Lipnunov and Shnkura, 1982, Begleman et al, 1980, Romney et al, 1987, Shapiro et a1 1982) . In this project report, an attempt is made 'to check if the inelas tic pro ton beam collision mode 1 of Any akoha e t a1 ( 19 88) vhich seems to explain the observed flux densi ties from some jets of extragalactic radio sources will also explain the observed flux densities from SS 433 radio je ts. Effort is also made to dhcw' how the mob 1 explains the observed radio emission variability from the jets of the object. CI " -tection and Identification of the Ob iect At Different -ve le ephensm and Sanduleak ( 19 77) reported a sumy of the dh they aimed to dete&ne the 'sou position of the star was then given as: RA(1950) = 19" 09~21.~28, dec(1950) = + 04~53154l1.04. It was believed that this coordinates differ significantly from those of some sources associated with a supernova remnant 1,150 (G 39.7, - Z~.O). Stephenson and Sanciuleak in their con- clusion noted that the source is variable on the basis of the fact that the star ought to have been detected in their previous surveys if the emission intensity had been constant. David and T4urdin (19783 describing an tnusual emission line star, su? 1 associated with a variable point radio source. r r lt=y L C!XJL ILCU 11 ~ttXullard Radio As tronorny-Observatory (n~rcnna1rnrnr7iini ratinn \ whi rh nave the nnci ti nn nf Ryle et a1.( 1978) investigated a point radio source and suggested that it is a new class of radio star associated with supernova rewants. I t was their belief that they had detected another point radio source of tfie same class as 1909 + 48,giving their own posi tion as 19 10 + 052 but maintaining that they are all as socia ted with the same supernova reman t-WSO. It was Sequis t et a1 (1978) who reported the detection of a variab le radio emission from the peculiar Hd emitting star - SS 433. Ihe detection of radio emission from this object was the only successful radio survey of about benty objects from the list des cribed as 's trong' in Q emission. One year later, Seaquis t et a1 ( 1979) repor ted again the discovery of an unusual emission line star associated with a variable unresolved radio source 1909 + 04, suggesting that all the sources may be associated with the same supernova remnant - WSO . At virtually the same time, Ryle et a1 (1978) reported the result of observations of a number of compact radio sources poss ib ly associated with supernova remnants . One of the sources was 1909 + 048 whi& they specifically proposed to be associated with SS 433 and which is considered to be a supernova remnant W50 (G 39O.7, -2 0 .0). and V1383 Aql. CKholopov et a1 13Gll. Naving been i(1cntified as nnaVLLb rnmmnnbVIIIIIIVI. Lp=Jifi ULL-V YVHAkbCnvvFpn J1l;n 4979,-L it is now known that the radio, o~tlcaland X-ray names refe.r' ---- -l.r--L-- ' - -2 ---.- -- . CCJVLUL~I~L~SIS Trven ~ts: 0 1 = 39O.7, b = -2 ,2 (de Vegt i shall hencefort refer to as SS 2-3 Other Unique Objects NithL.. ,.. - ,,,,.., , There are t]lree galactic objeck- - 1-2 -c&-nUl. LC1I I1C:aC.Lel~nnr: JUCUknA 43=.-. ..-4UI ILqUI--.to - due to certain properties and/or bethaviours characterised by chaotic variab.ility in all the spec:Ira1 wavelengths, These objects are SS 433, Sco x-1 and Cyg X-3, They are usually referred to as x-ray binaries in the x-ray wavelengths.