The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has led to the first images of a supermassive black hole, revealing the central compact objects in the elliptical galaxy M87 and the Milky Way. Proposed upgrades to this array through the next-generation EHT (ngEHT) program would sharply improve the angular resolution, dynamic range, and temporal coverage of the existing EHT observations. These improvements will uniquely enable a wealth of transformative new discoveries related to black hole science, extending from event-horizon-scale studies of strong gravity to studies of explosive transients to the cosmological growth and influence of supermassive black holes. Here, we present the key science goals for the ngEHT and their associated instrument requirements, both of which have been formulated through a multi-year international effort involving hundreds of scientists worldwide.

We have compared the parsec-scale jet linear polarization properties of the Fermi LATdetected and non-detected sources in the complete flux-density-limited (MOJAVE-1) sample of highly beamed AGN. Of the 123 MOJAVE sources, 30 were detected by the LAT during its first three months of operation. We find that during the era since the launch of Fermi, the unresolved core components of the LAT-detected jets have significantly higher median fractional polarization at 15 GHz. This complements our previous findings that these LAT sources have higher apparent jet speeds, brightness temperatures and Doppler factors, and are preferentially found in higher activity states.

We present the first polarimetric space very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of OJ 287, observed with RadioAstron at 22 GHz during a perigee session on 2014 April 4 and five near-in-time snapshots, together with contemporaneous ground VLBI observations at 15, 43, and 86 GHz. Ground-space fringes were obtained up to a projected baseline of 3.9 Earth diameters during the perigee session, and at a record 15.1 Earth diameters during the snapshot sessions, allowing us to image the innermost jet at an angular resolution of ∼50μ as, the highest ever achieved at 22 GHz for OJ 287. Comparison with ground-based VLBI observations reveals a progressive jet bending with increasing angular resolution that agrees with predictions from a supermassive binary black hole model, although other models cannot be ruled out. Spectral analyses suggest that the VLBI core is dominated by the internal energy of the emitting particles during the onset of a multiwavelength flare, while the parsec-scale jet is consistent with being in equipartition between the particles and magnetic field. Estimated minimum brightness temperatures from the visibility amplitudes show a continued rising trend with projected baseline length up to 1013 K, reconciled with the inverse-Compton limit through Doppler boosting for a jet closely oriented to the line of sight. The observed electric vector position angle suggests that the innermost jet has a predominantly toroidal magnetic field, which, together with marginal evidence of a gradient in rotation measure across the jet width, indicates that the VLBI core is threaded by a helical magnetic field, in agreement with jet formation models.

Relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) are among the most powerful astrophysical objects discovered to date. Indeed, jetted AGN studies have been considered a prominent science case for SKA, and were included in several different chapters of the previous SKA Science Book (Carilli & Rawlings 2004). Most of the fundamental questions about the physics of relativistic jets still remain unanswered, and await high-sensitivity radio instruments such as SKA to solve them. These questions will be addressed specially through analysis of the massive data sets arising from the deep, all-sky surveys (both total and polarimetric flux) from SKA1. Wide-field verylong-baseline-interferometric survey observations involving SKA1 will serve as a unique tool for distinguishing between extragalactic relativistic jets and star forming galaxies via brightness temperature measurements. Subsequent SKA1 studies of relativistic jets at different resolutions will allow for unprecedented cosmological studies of AGN jets up to the epoch of re-ionization, enabling detailed characterization of the jet composition, magnetic field, particle populations, and plasma properties on all scales. SKA will enable us to study the dependence of jet power and star formation on other properties of the AGN system. SKA1 will enable such studies for large samples of jets, while VLBI observations involving SKA1 will provide the sensitivity for pc-scale imaging, and SKA2 (with its extraordinary sensitivity and dynamic range) will allow us for the first time to resolve and model the weakest radio structures in the most powerful radio-loud AGN.

The last decade has witnessed a steadily increasing number of observational studies concerning the rare class of radio loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies, of which several hundred are currently known. According to the current AGN paradigm, the low black hole masses and high accretion rates of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLSy1) should make them unlikely to launch jets, and indeed the vast majority (∼ 90%) are very radio weak. The remainder, however, display a wide range of radio power, from ∼ 10 21−28 W Hz −1 . In this review I discuss recent radio imaging surveys that suggest there are three main classes of NLSy1, which cannot be easily distinguished by the standard radio-loudness parameter alone: (i) radio-weak NLSy1s without jets, (ii) mildly radio-loud NLSy1s that are a mixture of star-forming and jet-dominant AGN, and (iii) very radio loud NLSy1s with extreme properties similar to powerful jet-dominated blazars. I present updated kinematics information from the MOJAVE survey on six of the latter sources (all detected in gamma-rays by Fermi), indicating high bulk Lorentz factors and small viewing angles in three cases. Studies with the JVLA have shown that the jets of radio loud NLSy1s are likely lowerpower versions of classical radio galaxies, with typical lengths of less than 10 kpc, although two very radio-loud NLSy1s have de-projected sizes of several hundred kpc. I discuss the challenges of reconciling the heterogeneous radio properties of NLSy1s with their strict optical line criteria, and near-term prospects for the discovery of larger numbers of radio-loud NLSy1s.Revisiting narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies and their place in the Universe -NLS1 Padova