视超光速射电源

Superluminal Radio Sources

视超光速射电源的发现被认为是用VLBI技术获得的一项重大天体物理成就。本文较系统地叙述了对该类源的研究进展,内容包括:视超光速源的发现和证认方法、视超光速源的观测特征,对视超光速源的理论解释及其遇到的困难、一些著名的巡天观测和统计工作以及对90年代视超光速源研究前景的简要展望。

The discovery of superluminal radio sources has been considered as one of the most important astrophysical achivements obtained by means of the VLBI technique. In this paper, the author briefly reviews the recent progress in the various aspects concerning observational and theoretical researches on superluminal sources.In the first three parts, methods of superluminal source identification (in the 3rd part) are presented as well as the discovery (in the 2nd part) arid the importance (in the 1st part) of study about superluminal sources. The general characteristics of superluminal sources in many aspects (such as, morphology, spectrum, polarization and statistics) are summarized in the 4th part. In the 5th part, a widely accepted theoretical model (i. e. the relativistical beaming model) and its problems are briefly discussed. Some VLBI surveys and two statistical works are introduced in the 6th and 7th parts separately. Finally the prospects of observations and study of superluminal source are outlined.