Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2016
Radio maps of extragalactic radio sources made with the Westerbork, Cambridge and V.L.A. synthesis telescopes have revealed collimated jets extending from the cores to the radio lobes (see Miley 1980 for a review). These observations have provided outstanding support for ‘beam models’ of extragalactic radio sources (Scheuer 1974, Blandford and Rees 1974). Two crucial pieces of information to emerge from high resolution observations are the behaviours of jet full width half maximum (FWHM) and surface brightness with angular distance from the core. Such data have for instance been provided by Formalont et al. (1980) and Bridle et al. (1981) for the jets in 3C-31 and by Willis et al. (1981) and Bridle (1981) for the jets in NGC 315. An important point is that the relationship between jet surface brightness and FWHM is not in general as predicted by simple magnetohydrodynamic models (Bridle 1981).