Published in New Astronomy Reviews, Volume 46, Issue 2-7, p. 61-65, 2002.
astro-ph/9911063

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ON THE LIVES OF EXTRA-GALACTIC RADIO SOURCES: THE FIRST 100,000 YEARS

Ignas Snellen a, 1 and Richard Schilizzi b


a Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB4 3EX, UK
b Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, The Netherlands


Abstract: In this paper we discuss the early phase of radio source evolution as represented by Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) and Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) radio sources. Correlations between their spectral peak and angular size strongly suggest that the spectral turnovers are caused by synchrotron self absorption, and indicate that young radio sources evolve in a self similar way. We argue that the evolution of a radio source during its first 105 years is qualitatively very different from that during the rest of its life-time. This may be caused by the difference in the density gradient of the intra-galactic medium inside and outside the core-radius of the host galaxy.


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1 This research was supported by the European Commission, TMR Programme, Research Network Contract ERBFMRXCT96-0034 "CERES".

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