Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
A series of VLBI surveys of complete samples of radio sources selected at 5 GHz (Pearson & Readhead 1988, hereafter PR; Xu et al. 1995 and references therein) has revealed that ≃ 10% of the objects are “Compact Symmetric Objects” (CSOs), in which high-luminosity radio emission regions are seen on both sides of the center of activity on scales less than one kiloparsec (Phillips & Mutel 1982; Readhead et al. 1984; Conway et al. 1992; Wilkinson et al. 1994). In order to be sure that an object is a CSO, either the center of activity must be pinpointed (Taylor et al. 1996) or compelling morphological evidence of symmetric structure must be found.