Physical properties of young radio sources: VLBA observations of high-frequency peaking radio sources

Abstract

Multifrequency Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations were performed to study the radio morphology and synchrotron spectra of four high-frequency peaking radio sources. They are resolved into several compact components and the radio emission is dominated by hotspots/lobes. The core region is detected unambiguously in J1335+5844 and J1735+5049. The spectra of the main source components peak above 3 GHz. Assuming that the spectral peak is produced by synchrotron self-absorption, we estimate the magnetic field directly from observable quantities: in half of the components it agrees with the equipartition field, while in the others the difference exceeds an order of magnitude. By comparing the physical properties of the targets with those of larger objects, we found that the luminosity increases with linear size for sources smaller than a few kpc, while it decreases for larger objects. The asymmetric sources J1335+5844 and J1735+5049 suggest that the ambient medium is inhomogeneous and is able to influence the evolution of the radio emission even during its first stages. The core luminosity increases with linear size for sources up to a few kpc, while it seems constant for larger sources, suggesting an evolution independent of source total luminosity.