Letter | Published:

# A wide and collimated radio jet in 3C84 on the scale of a few hundred gravitational radii

Nature Astronomyvolume 2pages472477 (2018) | Download Citation

## Abstract

Understanding the formation of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei remains an elusive problem1. This is partly because observational tests of jet formation models suffer from the limited angular resolution of ground-based very-long-baseline interferometry that has thus far been able to probe the structure of the jet acceleration and collimation region in only two sources2,3. Here, we report observations of 3C84 (NGC 1275)—the central galaxy of the Perseus cluster—made with an interferometric array including the orbiting radio telescope of the RadioAstron4 mission. The data transversely resolve the edge-brightened jet in 3C84 only 30 μas from the core, which is ten times closer to the central engine than was possible in previous ground-based observations5 and allows us to measure the jet collimation profile from ~102 to ~104 gravitational radii (rg) from the black hole. The previously found5, almost cylindrical jet profile on scales larger than a few thousand rg is seen to continue at least down to a few hundred rg from the black hole, and we find a broad jet with a transverse radius of 250 rg at only 350 rg from the core. This implies that either the bright outer jet layer goes through a very rapid lateral expansion on scales 102rg or it is launched from the accretion disk.

## Main

We observed 3C84 on 21 September 2013 with a very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) array consisting of a global network of ground radio telescopes and the 10 m Space Radio Telescope (SRT) of the RadioAstron space-VLBI mission4. The successful detection of the interferometric signal between the SRT and the ground array up to a baseline length of about 8 Earth diameters at 22 GHz provides us with 27 μas fringe spacing on the sky and a significant improvement in the angular resolution over ground-based arrays. Figure 1 presents our 22 GHz space-VLBI image of the innermost parsec of 3C84 at an angular resolution of 0.10 × 0.05 mas (PA = 0°). The bright and compact emission at about 2.2 mas north of the image reference centre is identified with the radio core, from which a faint and short counter-jet and a brighter 3-mas-long jet depart towards the north and south directions, respectively. The main jet ends in a bright spot with a surrounding diffuse emission. This emission feature has been called ‘C3’ in previous studies5. It emerged from the core around 2003, moves at a speed of <0.5 c and appears to be the end point of the newly restarted jet where the flow strongly interacts with the external medium6,7 (see Supplementary Note and Supplementary Fig. 1). An older, slower-moving and diffuse emission feature, called ‘C2’ (ref. 6), is visible on the western side of the jet. The limb-brightened jet connecting the core and C3 shows a large initial opening angle, followed by a rapid collimation to a quasi-cylindrical shape. Most active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets in VLBI images appear ridge-brightened, while limb-brightened jets are rare and have been reported only in a few nearby radio galaxies, such as Mrk 501 (ref. 8), M87 (ref. 9) and Cygnus A3, as well as 3C84 (ref. 5) itself. Figure 2 shows the inner core-jet region convolved with a 0.05 mas circular beam and reveals that the jet remains strongly limb-brightened all the way to the core. Thanks to the 0.027 mas fringe spacing roughly in the direction transverse to the jet, our space-VLBI observation resolves well the two limbs already at a distance zproj ~ 0.03 mas from the core. This is a factor of ten closer to the central engine than was possible with the earlier ground-based VLBI measurements at 43 GHz (having east–west resolution of 0.13 mas; ref. 5), and corresponds to a de-projected linear distance of z ~ 350 gravitational radii (rg). Here, we have assumed a jet inclination angle of 18° (ref. 10) and a black hole mass of ~2 × 109 M (see Methods). The presence of the limb-brightened structure so near to the jet origin confirms that it is an intrinsic property of the jet.

The large intensity ratio between the bright outer layer (hereafter, the ‘sheath’) and the dim central part of the jet (hereafter, the ‘spine’) can be explained either by a specific transverse velocity structure of the flow11 or by intrinsic emissivity differences between the spine and the sheath, or both. Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of black hole ergosphere-driven jets show a slow outer jet layer in addition to a fast central part12. At intermediate-to-large jet inclination angles (θ 10°), it is possible to have a situation in which the relativistic Doppler boosting effect is stronger for the low-velocity sheath than the high-velocity spine, thus producing images where the sheath is apparently the brightest jet region. On the other hand, one also expects higher mass loading of the sheath due to its interaction with the external medium, as is evident by the deceleration of the jets on the large scale. If the electrons at the jet boundary layer can be accelerated by some mechanism, such as shear acceleration13, the intrinsic emissivity in the sheath can exceed that of the spine. The brightening of the spine as the jet approaches C3 is visible in Fig. 1 and can indicate either slowing down of the flow or increased emissivity caused by particle acceleration in C3, which probably contains strong shocks set up in the interface of the jet and the interstellar medium.

The bright and compact sheath sides provide a well-determined outline of the jet, thus allowing a very robust measurement of its collimation profile. The peak-to-peak width (2r) of the edge-brightened jet at different distances from the core is shown in Fig. 3. The jet appears to be surprisingly wide already at the nearest point to the radio core where we can measure the jet radius using the limb-brightened structure, zproj = 0.03 mas (z ~ 350 rg de-projected). Here, r = 0.07 mas, corresponding to $$r {>rsim} 250\,r_{\rm{g}}$$, depending on the black hole mass assumption. Assuming that the jet origin coincides with the location of the 22 GHz core, the apparent jet opening angle αo = 2 arctan(r/zproj) = 130 ± 10°. This is the largest opening angle ever observed in any astrophysical jet (for M87, αo ~ 100° has been measured9). The corresponding intrinsic opening angle is αi = αo sinθ ~ 40°. Despite this large initial opening angle, the collimation profile between z = 350 rg and z = 8,000 rg is almost cylindrical with rz0.17±0.01. This quasi-cylindrical profile has been seen in an earlier study on scales larger than a few thousand rg (ref. 5), but now there is clear evidence that it exists already at a few hundred rg from the central engine. As is also apparent in Fig. 2, this implies a strong collimation of the jet inside a few hundred rg from the core.

AGN jets are probably powered by magnetic fields extracting either the energy of the accreting matter14 or the rotational energy of the spinning black hole itself15. Both theoretical arguments and recent computer simulations16 favour jet launching from the black hole ergosphere (the so-called Blandford–Znajek (BZ) mechanism15), especially in those AGN that have geometrically thick, radiatively inefficient accretion flows. With the Eddington ratio of 0.4%, 3C84 is considered a radiatively inefficient accretion flow, although just barely17. If the jet streamlines are anchored at the event horizon, the maximum width of the jet close to the central engine is restricted. Our measured jet radius of 250 rg at z ~ 350 rg from the central engine places significant constraints for this scenario. Figure 3 shows two theoretical streamlines from force-free, steady-state jet solutions anchored at the horizon radius on the equatorial plane as the outermost streamlines that can touch the horizon. It is clear that the limb-brightened jet structure is much wider than the genuine parabolic (Blandford–Znajek-type: rz0.5 at $$r\gg {r}_{{\rm{g}}}$$) streamline. The measured data points remain just below the quasi-conical (rz0.98 at $$r\gg {r}_{{\rm{g}}}$$) outermost streamline18. This implies that while the streamlines of the jet sheath may in principle connect to the horizon, this is only possible if there is a rapidly laterally expanding flow on scales 102rg. Hence, while an ergosphere-launched jet15 still remains possible in the case of 3C84, we should consider the possibility that the jet sheath is launched from the accretion disk14. We note that this does not exclude the existence of a magnetically collimated, ergosphere-launched core inside the sheath.

The quasi-cylindrical jet structure in 3C84 is in sharp contrast with the two other jet collimation profiles that have been measured up to now. Both of these are nearly parabolic: M87 has rz0.56±0.01 between z = 200 rg and z = 4 × 105rg (dashed line in Fig. 3; Nakamura et al., manuscript in preparation) and Cygnus A has rz0.55±0.07 between z = 500 rg and z = 104rg (ref. 3). Since the outline of the relativistic magnetohydrodynamic jets is determined by confinement due to external medium, this difference in collimation profiles implies differences in the environments, where the jets propagate.

If the pressure in the external medium decreases as pextzb with b < 2, there exists an equilibrium solution19 with a collimation profile rzb/4. The observed quasi-cylindrical collimation profile, rz0.17, could therefore be produced by a very shallow pressure profile of the external medium, b 1. The corresponding density profile at z 1 pc should then be close to flat; that is, ρextzk with k = b − 1 ~ 0. Since both the spherical Bondi accretion model and the advection-dominated accretion flow model have k = 3/2, these nearly free-falling accretion flows cannot explain the observed collimation profile20. If it is a disk-like accretion flow that confines the jet, its scale height should be at least ~104rg ~ 0.8 pc to explain our observations. However, having a flat density profile along the inner edge of a geometrically thick disk also seems unlikely. Hence, it is most likely that the jet is not in a pressure equilibrium with the accretion flow or other stratified components of the interstellar medium.

One obvious difference between the jets in M87 and 3C84, which can provide hints regarding the origin of the collimation profile in 3C84, is the restarted nature and young age of 3C84 (ref. 7). The dynamical age of the feature C3—the head of the restarted jet—is only ~10 yr at the time of our observation6. Kiloparsec-scale jets are known to create cavities with an almost uniform pressure environment, which can recollimate the flow into a cylindrical shape before it enters the leading hot spot21. The feature C3 probably corresponds to a parsec-scale analogue of kiloparsec-scale hot spots7, and the restarted jet may have thus recollimated already very close to the central engine. This is supported by RadioAstron observations at 5 GHz, which show evidence for low-intensity cocoon emission surrounding the 22 GHz jet (Savolainen et al., manuscript in preparation). Hence, the jet in 3C84 is probably not shaped by the underlying stratified interstellar medium, but rather the shocked material of the cocoon, and the oscillations of the jet width beyond 8,000 rg in Fig. 3 may be manifestations of this same interaction. Finally, we note that the dynamical age of the restarted jet is less than that needed for relaxation of the system (the sound-crossing time is 10 yr for a sphere of 1 pc radius even if one assumes a maximum sound speed of 0.3 c for the ambient medium) and we may not be seeing the final structure of the jet. Future observations of 3C84 may therefore give a unique record of the early evolution of a restarted jet in an active galaxy.

## Methods

### Observations and data reduction

Here, we provide a concise description of the space-VLBI observations and applied data reduction procedures. A more detailed account is given in a companion paper, which also discusses the observations made at other frequencies during the same observing run (Savolainen et al., manuscript in preparation).

3C84 was observed by the RadioAstron4 SRT and an array of ground radio telescopes in a VLBI mode around the perigee passage of the SRT from 2013 September 21 15:00 ut to 2013 September 22 13:00 ut (observation codes: raks03a for RadioAstron and GS032A for the ground array). The highly elliptical orbit of the SRT with an apogee height of 360,000 km provides baselines that are up to 30 times longer than is possible on Earth, thus allowing a significant improvement in the angular resolution over ground-based arrays. In our experiment, projected space baselines from 0.2 to 10.4 Earth diameters in length were sampled during the observation. The SRT recorded simultaneously left circularly polarized signals from both the C-band (4.836 GHz) and K-band (22.236 GHz) receivers. The total recorded bandwidth was 32 MHz at each band. The SRT recorded 44 10-min-long blocks of data, hereafter called ‘scans’. There were 70–90-min-long gaps between every 3–4 scans to allow the satellite’s high gain antenna motor to cool down. The global ground array observed the source continuously when it was above the horizon. The RadioAstron data were recorded by tracking stations in Puschino, Russia and Green Bank, USA.

The ground array consisted of 29 radio telescopes, of which 24 produced data that were successfully correlated. The array was split into two parts during the RadioAstron observing scans: five Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) antennas (Brewster, Kitt Peak, North Liberty, Pie Town and St. Croix), Green Bank Telescope, Shanghai, Kalyazin, Onsala, Noto, Jodrell Bank, Westerbork and Hartebeesthoek observed only at 4.8 GHz, while the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) antennas Yonsei and Ulsan, as well as five VLBA antennas (Fort Davis, Hancock, Los Alamos, Mauna Kea and Owens Valley), the phased Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), Medicina and Yebes observed at 22.2 GHz. Effelsberg switched between the bands, observing 50% of the time at each. Frequency-agile VLBA antennas and the phased VLA observed additionally at 15.4, 22.2 and 43.2 GHz during the RadioAstron cooling gaps. The recorded baseband data were correlated at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie using the DiFX correlator modified for space-VLBI application by implementing a rigorous model for the path delay of an interferometer with an orbiting element according to the general relativity22.

Finding interferometric signal (that is, ‘fringes’) on the baselines to the orbiting antenna is challenging due to the typically low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the fringes and the large parameter space that needs to be searched due to uncertainties in the a priori orbit reconstruction of the SRT. The post-correlation fringe search was carried out in two parts. First, a coarse search was performed with the PIMA software23 (http://astrogeo.org/pima/), which processes baselines individually. We selected solutions that had a false detection probability of less than 0.1%, and determined the large residual group delay, fringe rate and fringe acceleration that are due to the uncertainties in the a priori orbit. The PIMA search resulted in fringe detections up to baseline lengths of 6.9 DEarth at 4.8 GHz and up to 2.8 DEarth at 22.2 GHz. In the second step of fringe-fitting, we refined the model derived in the previous step using the Astronomical Image Processing System (AIPS; http://www.aips.nrao.edu) task FRING, which allows combining data from multiple ground telescopes in a global solution. Such a combined solution is equivalent to phasing up the ground array antennas and it increases the sensitivity with respect to the baseline-based fringe search in step one24.

3C84 has a complex, extended structure in VLBI scales, which causes additional noise in the global fringe-fitting solutions, if it is not taken into account. To remove the effect of the source structure, we first imaged the source using only the ground baselines. The resulting image (see Supplementary Fig. 1) was then used as an input model for global fringe-fitting of the full dataset, including the space baselines, in AIPS using the task FRING. Fringe-fitting of the SRT data in AIPS was performed in an iterative manner: on the first round, a moderately large search window with a detection threshold of SNR = 5 was used, whereas on the second round the window was narrowed down to ±100 ns in delay and ±25 mHz (4.8 GHz) or ±50 mHz (22.2 GHz) in rate around the values interpolated from the neighbouring solutions (combining detections at both bands), and the SNR threshold was lowered to 3.1 corresponding to false detection rates below 0.1% (4.8 GHz) and 0.2% (22.2 GHz). We note that the ground array data were fringe-fitted at a 2 min solution interval before carrying out the fringe search on the space baselines at a 10 min solution interval. Therefore, many of the atmospheric phase fluctuations were removed before SRT fringes were searched, thus allowing longer integration times.

The AIPS fringe search yielded space-baseline fringe detections for 33 scans at 4.8 GHz with the longest baselines being 7.8 DEarth to Effelsberg and 8.1 DEarth to Green Bank Telescope. At 22.2 GHz, space-baseline fringes were detected for 12 scans with the longest baselines being 7.6 DEarth to Effelsberg and 8.1 DEarth to VLA. The measured visibilities at 22 GHz cover a range in (u, v) radius from about 4 Mλ to 7.7 Gλ. The visibilities on the space baselines comprise 5.6% of the total number of K-band visibilities after the fringe search stage.

The gain amplitude calibration was performed in a standard manner using measured system temperatures and gain curves25. Editing, imaging and self-calibration of the data were carried out in Difmap. While the ground array antennas were self-calibrated down to a 10 s averaging interval in phase and a 30 s averaging interval in amplitude, the SRT was self-calibrated using longer solution intervals: 2 min in phase and the whole observing length in amplitude. This is important to prevent spurious flux from being generated from the noise on the longest space baselines that have weaker constraints from closure phases. The corrections in the amplitude for the SRT were modest at 15–20%.

Since the aim of the space-VLBI observations is to obtain the highest possible angular resolution, we give more weight to the space baselines in imaging than the usual natural weighting scheme does26. In Difmap, we selected uniform weighting with a bin size of 5 pixels in the (u, v) grid combined with an additional weighting by the visibility errors to the power of −1 as this gave a good balance between the angular resolution and noise in the final image. We note that the data were also independently imaged in AIPS and the results agree well.

The full-resolution image at 22.2 GHz has a beam size of 300 × 50 μas (PA = 22°) when using the above-described weighting. The highly elongated beam is due to the (u, v) coverage of space baselines being in a narrow range of position angles around ~100°. To make the image easier to interpret by eye, Fig. 1 uses a more symmetrical restoring beam of 100 × 50 μas; that is, the image is super-resolved by a factor of three in one direction. This amount of super-resolution was found in a recent study to give minimum errors in the CLEAN image reconstruction of simulated datasets27. Also, a comparison of source structures between images made with different (u, v) weighting functions and different restoring beams shows good agreement.

### Measurement of the jet collimation profile

To measure the jet width as a function of distance from the core, we used the image that was convolved with a 0.05 mas circular beam and a pixel-size of 0.002 mas. All the distances were measured from the image peak flux density position (assumed to be the core position at 22 GHz) and the centre of the well-resolved jet (see below for discussion on a possible core-shift). To measure the jet width we obtained in AIPS multiple slices perpendicular to the jet direction. The first slice is at a distance of 0.03 mas, where the jet is already well resolved in the transverse direction.

The eastern side of the jet sheath is marginally resolved within the first 0.5 mas from the core with a deconvolved full-width-at-half-maximum of <15 μas, while the western side is slightly more extended with a full-width-at-half-maximum of 22 ± 8 μas. The width of both sides constantly increases as a function of distance from the core, reaching 40 ± 8 μas at ~1 mas from the core before merging with C3. These bright and narrow jet limbs provide a well-determined outline of the jet, thus allowing us to accurately measure the jet width (2r) as the peak-to-peak distance between two Gaussians fit to the bright east and west edges of the jet. The two Gaussian profiles are always well separated and the brightness in the central region of the jet is low, allowing good fits. Uncertainties in the jet width reported in Fig. 3 are in the range 0.01–0.02 mas (1σ) and have been estimated from the reported uncertainties in the Gaussian fit, and comparing the results with a small shift (2–4 pixels) of the slice position. Uncertainties in the distance from the core are very small; that is, of the order of 2 pixels. Therefore, the uncertainty in the observed opening angle is relatively small and we estimate α o  = 130 ± 10°.

### Possible core-shift

The bright, upstream-most emission feature in AGN jets is known as the ‘core’ and it is usually identified as the location where the optical depth due to synchrotron self-absorption is ~1. This location is frequency dependent and the resulting measurable phenomenon is known as ‘core-shift’28. In our analysis, we assumed that the 22 GHz core is coincident with the jet origin. However, if there was significant core-shift, all the jet width measurements would move to the right in Fig. 3 by the corresponding amount.

We can constrain the possible core-shift in 3C84 at 22 GHz thanks to detection of the counter-jet in our image, which is also in agreement with the recent lower-resolution images29. Directly measuring the gap between the jet and the counter-jet in the 22 GHz image is not obvious because one would need to subtract the strong central component and the residuals suffer from dynamic range problems. However, moving to the east of the map peak in Fig. 2, we see clearly that the radio structure is forking and there is emission to the north and south with respect to the peak position. We interpret this structure as the region where the jet and counter-jet start. Using tvslice in AIPS and looking at clean components in the high-resolution image, we can estimate that the gap between the two jet regions is 0.05 ± 0.02 mas. Since the central engine should be located between the jet and counter-jet, we conclude that the core-shift at 22 GHz should not be more than 0.03 mas in the north–south direction. We tried the same procedure with the western side of the jet, but the uncertainties there are too large since the jet is significantly brighter than the counter-jet.

Assuming a core-shift of 0.03 mas, the jet opening angle becomes smaller. The first point where the jet width is accurately measured from the edge-brightened structure would now be located at zproj = 0.06 mas from the jet origin (instead of zproj = 0.03 mas). The corresponding apparent opening angle would be ~100° and the intrinsic opening angle would be ~30°. This is still a large value and the jet collimation profile and corresponding discussion in the text are only marginally affected by the possible core-shift. In Fig. 3, the effect of possible 0.03 mas core-shift is shown by the right-side horizontal error bars.

### Jet orientation and black hole mass estimates

3C84 (NGC 1275, Per A) is a Fanaroff–Riley type I radio galaxy at a redshift of 0.0176. It has a two-sided parsec-scale jet and a strong nuclear emission resolved in a one-sided sub-parsec-scale structure5,30. Due to its brightness and proximity, 3C84 is an ideal laboratory to study the jet structure and origin. At the redshift of 3C84, the angular scale of 1 mas corresponds to only 0.344 pc, assuming a Λ cold dark matter model, where Λ is the cosmological constant (ΛCDM) cosmology with H0 = 70.7 km s−1 Mpc−1, ΩM = 0.27 and ΩΛ = 0.73 where H0 is the current value of the Hubble constant, ΩM is the mass density parameter of the Universe and ΩΛ is the effective mass density of the dark energy. For converting the measured angular distances along the jet to de-projected linear distances in units of rg, we need to adopt estimates for the jet inclination angle and black hole mass.

The jet orientation with respect to the line-of-sight in 3C84 has been discussed extensively in the literature, but it is far from certain. A relatively large orientation angle of 30–55° has been estimated by comparing the brightness and distance ratios between the southern (main) and northern (counter-) jet on a 10–20 mas scale30,31. In contrast, the proper motion ratio of the two jets indicates a much smaller viewing angle of 11° (ref. 32). This discrepancy is not so surprising, considering that the counter-jet emission on this scale is strongly affected by free–free absorption30 and the jet velocities are slowed down by the interaction with the dense and probably clumpy medium. For these reasons, the intrinsic symmetry in size, speed and brightness can be strongly affected by external, non-symmetric conditions, which renders these inclination estimates uncertain. Recently, the detection of a diffuse emission region 2 mas north of the core was reported and an inclination of 65° was derived assuming that this feature is a counterpart to C3 (ref. 29). However, since no compact emission similar to the hot spot in C3 was detected for this northern component, it is unclear whether it indeed corresponds to the end point of the restarted jet. Again, the same caveats regarding the symmetry of the jet in a dense and clumpy medium also apply to this estimate. We note that we cannot use the brightness ratio between the jet and counter-jet in Fig. 1 to constrain the jet inclination for 3C84, since the jet is a young, strongly evolving structure with large variability in its brightness, morphology and proper motion6,7. Since the structures visible on the jet and counter-jet side have different ages, no comparison is possible.

In contrast, the broadband spectral energy distribution of 3C84 suggests smaller viewing angles for its jet10,33. Specifically, the spectral energy distribution can be satisfactorily reproduced in the framework of the spine-layer model10 if the viewing angle is smaller than 20°. Considering that there is indeed a strongly stratified jet structure visible in Fig. 1, an inclination of 18° was adopted for the present discussion.

If we assume that the limb-brightened structure can be explained by the inner spine of the jet being faster than the outer sheath11, we can use the brightness ratio between the sheath and the spine to place some additional constraints on the jet orientation and velocity. The observed brightness ratio between the sheath and the spine in 3C84 is about 20 within the innermost 0.55 mas from the core. For a jet inclination of 18°, the maximum Doppler boosting factor δ = 3.23 is obtained with a flow velocity of 0.943 c (corresponding to a Lorentz factor of Γ = 3), which is still a reasonable value for a jet sheath10. Assuming this velocity for the sheath and furthermore assuming that both the sheath and the spine have the same intrinsic emissivity, we find that a spine velocity Γ  20 is needed to produce the observed brightness ratio. If the inclination angle is significantly larger than 18°, the spine velocity can be lower, but still Γ  10 is required. If a transverse velocity structure is the only factor determining the limb-brightened appearance of the jet, the spine must have already accelerated to a velocity of Γ  10 within the first few hundred rg. The observed flux ratio also excludes inclination smaller than about 10°. If the spine has a lower relativistic particle density than the sheath, these constraints can be relaxed.

While we adopt an intermediate inclination angle of 18°, it is not possible to exclude a large inclination of ~45°, either. Such a viewing angle would make the measured intrinsic opening angle larger by a factor of ~2 and it would also change the assumed black hole mass as explained below. In Fig. 3 we therefore present the jet collimation profile assuming both a moderate jet inclination of 18° and a large inclination of 45°.

The mass of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the centre of the NGC 1275—the optical counterpart of 3C84—has been discussed in the literature based on the molecular gas dynamics in the centre of the galaxy34,35. The reported values are dependent on the inclination of the molecular disc rotation axis, which has been assumed to match that of the radio jet axis. Recent high-resolution near-infrared integral field spectroscopy35 indicates a central mass of 8 × 108 M for a disk inclination of 45 ± 10° with a global lower limit of 5 × 108 M. A smaller inclination angle, like in our discussion, implies a significantly higher central mass from the same observations (more than 2 × 109 M). However, since it is possible that the jet inclination can differ from the inclination of the molecular disk, and also since the direct observations do not suggest a highly inclined disk35, we consider 2 × 109 M as the upper limit of the SMBH mass for our jet inclination of 18°. This yields 1 rg = 0.96 × 10−4 pc = 2.793 × 10−4 mas or 1 mas = 3.58 × 103rg. We have assumed this scaling for our discussion in order to be consistent with the assumed jet inclination of 18°.

As mentioned earlier, we cannot exclude the possibility of a large jet inclination of 45°. In this case, the SMBH mass would be correspondingly lower, 8 × 108 M, with a lower limit of 5 × 108 M (ref. 35). Interestingly, while the lower black hole mass scales up the jet width in gravitational radii by a factor of 2.5 (or by a factor of 4 if the lower limit for the mass is assumed), the de-projected distances along the jet change much less—by only 10% (or by a factor of 1.7 if the lower limit for the mass is assumed). This is because the change in the foreshortening factor, sin 45°/sin 18° = 2.3, counters the change in the black hole mass scaling. This can be seen in Fig. 3, which also shows the jet collimation profile for the cases of i = 45° and MBH = 8 × 108 M or 5 × 108 M, where MBH is the black hole mass.

### Data availability

The data that supports the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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## Acknowledgements

We thank E. Ros for useful comments on the manuscript. The RadioAstron project is led by the Astro Space Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Lavochkin Scientific and Production Association under a contract with the State Space Corporation ROSCOSMOS, in collaboration with partner organizations in Russia and other countries. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities. The European VLBI Network is a joint facility of independent European, African, Asian and North American radio astronomy institutes. The KVN is a facility operated by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. The KVN operations are supported by the Korea Research Environment Open NETwork, which is managed and operated by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information. This work was partially supported by the National Research Council of Science and Technology, granted by the International Joint Research Program (EU-16-001). This research is based on observations correlated at the Bonn Correlator, jointly operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie and the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy. T.S. was funded by the Academy of Finland projects 274477 and 284495. Y.Y.K., M.M.L., K.V.S. and P.A.V. were supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project 16-12-10481). S.-S.L. was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean government (MSIP; number 987 NRF-2016R1C1B2006697).

## Author information

### Affiliations

1. #### Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

• G. Giovannini
• , F. D’Ammando
•  & R. Lico
2. #### Istituto di Radio Astronomia, INAF, Bologna, Italy

• G. Giovannini
• , M. Orienti
• , M. Giroletti
• , G. Bruni
• , F. D’Ammando
•  & R. Lico
3. #### Aalto University Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering, Espoo, Finland

• T. Savolainen
4. #### Aalto University Metsähovi Radio Observatory, Kylmälä, Finland

• T. Savolainen
5. #### Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany

• T. Savolainen
• , G. Bruni
• , Y. Y. Kovalev
• , T. P. Krichbaum
• , A. P. Lobanov
•  & J. A. Zensus
6. #### Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

• M. Nakamura

• H. Nagai

• M. Kino
9. #### Mizusawa VLBI Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, Japan

• M. Kino
• , K. Hada
•  & M. Honma

• G. Bruni
11. #### Astro Space Center of Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia

• Y. Y. Kovalev
• , M. M. Lisakov
• , K. V. Sokolovsky
•  & P. A. Voitsik
12. #### Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow, Russia

• Y. Y. Kovalev
•  & L. Petrov
13. #### Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany

• J. M. Anderson
14. #### Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea

• J. Hodgson
• , S.-S. Lee
•  & B. W. Sohn
15. #### Korea University of Science and Technology, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Korea

• S.-S. Lee
•  & B. W. Sohn

• L. Petrov

• B. W. Sohn
18. #### IAASARS, National Observatory of Athens, Penteli, Greece

• K. V. Sokolovsky
19. #### Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

• K. V. Sokolovsky

• S. Tingay

### Contributions

G.G., T.S. and M.O. coordinated the research, carried out the image analysis and wrote the manuscript. T.S., Y.Y.K., K.V.S., S.-S.L., B.W.S. and J.A.Z. planned and organized the space-VLBI imaging experiment, including the ground array. G.B. correlated the VLBI data with help from P.A.V., using the software tools developed by J.M.A. and L.P. Correlated VLBI data were calibrated by T.S. with contributions from M.M.L., while G.G., T.S., M.O. and Y.Y.K. imaged the data. The modelling was carried out by M.N., H.N., M.K. and M.G. All authors contributed to discussion of the data and its interpretation, and commented on the manuscript. T.S. is the Principal Investigator of the RadioAstron Nearby AGN Key Science Program.

### Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

### Corresponding authors

Correspondence to G. Giovannini or T. Savolainen.

## Supplementary information

1. ### Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figure 1, Supplementary References 1–13 and Supplementary Text