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D. Schwartz (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Chandra observations have found X-ray jets to be ubiquitous, diverse, and puzzling. We will review the public domain observations of jets in Cen A, 3C 273, and PKS 0637-752, and available information from GO/GTO studies. Cen A reveals a counter jet, and is the best case to study the interactions of a jet in the core of a galaxy. Pictor A seems to be a paradigm of what a jet is supposed to do: It becomes invisible, indicating very efficient energy transport, until forming a hot spot at the Western radio lobe. 3C 273 provides a wealth of detail on multiple knots, showing a systematic X-ray decrease correlated with the radio brightness increase. PKS 0637 poses many problems, inviting explanations ranging from a factor of 104 departure from equipartition, to a jet which is moving with bulk Lorentz factor \Gamma=10, 1 Mpc away from the quasar core.
Although no systematic surveys have been done, X-ray jets are detected in Seyferts, quasars, and radio sources of various morphologies and intrinsic luminosities. The ratio of X-ray to radio power, \nu f\nu, ranges from at least 10 to the X-ray detectability limit of about 0.1. The X-ray emission is typically puzzling, in that it cannot be a simple synchrotron extension of the radio emission, and it is not likely that synchrotron self-Compton models, which have been constructed for various discrete knots or hot spots, can explain the resolved, extended image of some jets.
The factor of 100 increase in imaging resolution provided by Chandra is crucial both to separate the jets from bright central objects, and to enhance their apparent surface brightness relative to extended emission and detector background. We expect future systematic surveys of jets with Chandra to reveal a wealth of information about many different physical processes.
I thank many collaborators who have performed analyses reported here. We thank NASA for support via NASA contract NAS8-39073.