Kinetic power of quasars and statistical excess of MOJAVE superluminal
  motions
  The MOJAVE survey contains 101 quasars with a total of 354 observed radio
components that are different from the radio cores, among which 95% move with
apparent projected superluminal velocities with respect to the core, and 45%
have projected velocities larger than 10c (with a maximum velocity 60c).
Doppler boosting effects are analyzed to determine the statistics of the
superluminal motions. We integrate over all possible values of the Lorentz
factor the values of the kinetic energy corresponding to each component. The
calculation of the mass in the ejection is carried out by assuming the minimum
energy state. This kinetic energy is multiplied by the frequency at which the
portions of the jet fluid identified as "blobs" are produced. Hence, we
estimate the average total power released by the quasars in the form of kinetic
energy in the long term on pc-scales.
  RESULTS. A selection effect in which both the core and the blobs of the
quasar are affected by huge Doppler-boosting enhancement increases the
probability of finding a jet ejected within 10 degrees of the line of sight
>~40 times above what one would expect for a random distribution of ejection,
which explains the ratios of the very high projected velocities given above.
The average total kinetic power of each MOJAVE quasar should be very high to
obtain this distribution: ~7E47 erg/s. This amount is much higher than previous
estimates of kinetic power on kpc-scales based on the analysis of cavities in
X-ray gas or radio lobes in samples of objects of much lower radio luminosity
but similar black hole masses. The kinetic power is a significant portion of
the Eddington luminosity, on the order of the bolometric luminosity, and
proportional on average to square root of the radio luminosity, although this
correlation might be induced by Malmquist-like bias.
