Dynamical and radiative effects of ultrarelativistic hadronic interactions in active galactic nuclei

We estimate the energies of the outflowing nucleons from the central regions of active galactic nuclei and found significant asymmetries in the nucleon energy output on both sides of the antiparallel axes of the high-luminosity radio source sample analyzed. The nucleon energy output is found to be consistently higher on the counterjet side than on the jet side for all the sources in this sample. We propose that relativistic neutron decay is a plausible mechanism for the production of radio synchrotron electrons in situ, and that large-scale radio jets result as a consequence of the dynamical and radiative signatures of the escaping relativistic neutrons.