THE FIRST KINEMATIC DETERMINATION OF MILLION-YEAR PRECESSION PERIOD OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

Short precession periods like the 164 day period of SS433 can be well determined by observations of timescales longer or much longer than the precession period. However, this does not work for sources with precession periods of millions of years. This Letter utilizes the particular morphologies of X-shaped sources, so that the three-dimensional kinematics of lobes can be obtained. Thus, for the first time, the million-year precession period of X-shaped sources by an observer on the Earth can be determined elegantly: 6.1 ± 1.5 Myr, 1.8 ± 0.5 Myr, and 3.2 ± 1.2 Myr for 3C52, 3C223.1, and 4C12.03, respectively. The result naturally explains the asymmetry displayed in the morphology of these sources, and the effect of propagation time on the diversity of morphologies is well demonstrated. The precession period may originate from long-term effects of a binary supermassive black hole system, which is a potential source of gravitational wave radiation.