Discovery of near infrared jets in the Galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105

Abstract

The Galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105 ejects collimated bipolar jets of plasma which appear to move faster-than-light, or 'superluminally', on the plane of the sky. We present the first non-radio frequency jet detections and polarization measurements from a microquasar. On 18 July 1995, the near infrared (NIR) jets had the same position angle as the radio jets and contained the bulk of the emitted jet energy. If the radiation is synchrotron, the emitting NIR electrons must have energies 100 times higher than those responsible for the radio emission. We call attention to an apparent mass scaling valid over a range of 10"8 which connects the jets in GRS 1915+105 with those from quasars powered by supermassive (M #approx# 10"9M_sun) black holes. Because GRS 1915+105 is in our galaxy, and hence 10"5 times closer than the quasars, it offers an unique opportunity to study the physics of ultra-relativistic jets. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RN 9303(349) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman