Investigation of the radio emission from active galactic nuclei: Determining the spin of a supermassive black hole

A. V. Ipatov, M. A. Kharinov, V. V. Mardyshkin, A. G. Mikhailov, Yu. N. Gnedin, M. Yu. Piotrovich, A. A. Evstigneev, A. A. Dyakov, R. Yu. Sergeev

Astronomy Letters, 40(4), 161-170 (2014)

Keywords: radio astronomy, radio brightness distribution, active galactic nuclei, accretion, relativistic jet

Abstract

The results of radio observations for ten kinetically dominated quasars are presented. The observations have been performed at 3.5 cm with the RTF-32 radio telescopes at the Zelenchukskaya and Badary observatories of the Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The kinetic power of the relativistic jets and the spins of the supermassive black holes in these objects have been determined from radio luminosity measurements. The rotation of the black hole in these objects is shown to be retrograde with respect to the Keplerian rotation in the accretion disk in the case of an approximate equality between the magnetic and gas pressures near the black hole event horizon.