On the evidence against the unified scheme for radio galaxies and quasars

Abstract

We examine critically the recent suggestion of an inconsistency between the unified scheme and the relative counts and median radio sizes of Fanaroff-Riley class II radio galaxies and quasars in the 3CRR sample. We discuss some of the shortcomings in the earlier analyses and present the results of our simulations of the expected ratio of the linear sizes of radio galaxies and quasars, as well as the observed fraction of quasars for different sample sizes. For the high-luminosity objects in the 3CRR sample, we examine the distributions of their luminosity, projected linear size and the fraction of emission from the core, which is used as a statistical measure of the orientation of the source axis to the line of sight. We show that the present data are consistent with the unified scheme.