Probing circular polarization and magnetic field structure in AGN

Abstract

The magnetic field morphology of relativistic jets can be studied with circular polarization (CP). Recent 3D relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) simulations coupled with radiative transfer calculations make strong predictions about the level (and morphology) of the jet's CP emission. These simulations show that the sign of CP and the electric vector position angle (EVPA) are both sensitive to the jet's magnetic field morphology within the radio core. We probe this theory by exploring if the jet's radio core EVPA orientation is consistent with the observed sign of the core CP in deep full-track polarimetric observations. We aim to probe the nature of linear polarization and CP in the innermost regions of jets from a small sample of nine blazars. This sample includes sources that have exhibited: (i) positive CP, (ii) negative CP, or (iii) positive & negative CP simultaneously in the radio core region. Nine blazar sources were observed using the VLBA at both 15 GHz and 23 GHz. Our self-calibration relies on a physically based model applied in DoG-HiT resulting in more accurate gains. We consider compact Stokes V structures instead of assuming it to be zero, which is crucial given the significant non-zero CP fraction observed at long baselines. We observe robust, relatively high degrees of fractional circular polarization m_c=(0.32 +- 0.2)% at 15 GHz and m_c=(0.59 +-0.56)% at 23 GHz. We observe consistent polarized structure and EVPA orientation over time when comparing our analysis with archival MOJAVE data. Theoretical predictions indicate a clear favored toroidal magnetic field orientation within the extended jet emission of the reconstructed signal of the blazar 0149+218. The jet structures of 1127-145 and 0528+134, even in superresolution, exhibit characteristics aligned with helical or poloidal magnetic nature.