Understanding the relationship between the environment of the black hole and the radio jet: optical spectroscopy of compact AGN

Abstract

We aim to investigate the relationship between radio jet activity on parsec-scales and the characteristics of both the bright active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their broad line regions (BLR). For this purpose, we combine 2cm Very Long Baseline Array observations of AGN with their optical spectral observations. This would enable us to investigate the optical spectra of a set of 172 relativistically beamed, flat-spectrum AGN with the nuclear disk oriented near to the plane of sky. Here, we present first results from optical spectroscopic observations of the brightest AGN from the 2 cm VLBA survey, and show a diversity of their spectral morphologies.Comment: 2 pages, to be published in the Proceedings of "Multiwavelength AGN Surveys", Cozumel, Dec 8 - 12, 200