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On the kiloparsec scale, extragalactic radio jets show two distinct morphologies related to their power: collimated high-power jets ending in a bright termination shock and low-power jets opening up close to the core and showing a more diffuse surface brightness distribution. The emergence of this morphological dichotomy on the parsec scale at the innermost jet regions can be studied with very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) radio observations of blazars in which the jet emission is strongly Doppler boosted due to relativistic bulk motion at small angles between the jet direction and the line of sight. We seek to characterize the geometry and emission profiles of the parsec-scale radio jets of flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) on parsec scales to derive properties of the magnetic field, environment, and energetics for different classes of extragalactic jets. We analyze the VLBI radio data of 15 FSRQs, 11 BL Lacs, and two radio galaxies contained in both the MOJAVE data archive and the Boston University BU blazar group sample archive at 15 GHz and 43 GHz, repectively. We derived the brightness-temperature and jet-width gradients along the jet axis from parameterizations of the jets using 2D Gaussian brightness distributions. In most BL Lac objects, the diameter and brightness-temperature gradients along the jet axis can generally be described well by single power laws, while the jets of FSRQs show more complex behavior and remain more strongly collimated on larger physical scales. We find evidence for a transition of the global jet geometry from a parabolic to a conical shape in the BL Lac objects 3C 66A, Mrk 421 and BL Lacertae, the radio galaxy 3C 111 and the FSRQs CTA 26, PKS 0528+134,4 C +71.07,4C +29.45, and 3C 279 outside the Bondi sphere., Comment: 51 pages, 47 figures

In the framework of the TANAMI multi-wavelength and VLBI monitoring, we study the evolution of the parsec-scale radio emission in radio galaxies in the southern hemisphere and their relationship to the $��$-ray properties. In this first paper, we focus on Fermi-LAT-detected sources. We perform a kinematic analysis for five $��$-ray detected radio galaxies using multi-epoch 8.4 GHz VLBI images, deriving limits on intrinsic jet parameters. We analyzed Fermi-LAT data in order to study possible connections between the $��$-ray properties and the pc-scale jets of Fermi-LAT-detected radio galaxies, both in terms of variability and average properties. We discuss the individual source results and draw preliminary conclusions on sample properties including published VLBI results from the MOJAVE survey, with a total of fifteen sources. We find that the first $��$-ray detection of Pictor A might be associated with the passage of a new VLBI component through the radio core. For the peculiar AGN PKS 0521-36, we detect subluminal parsec-scale jet motions, and we confirm the presence of fast $��$-ray variability in the source down to timescales of 6 hours. We robustly confirm the presence of significant superluminal motion, up to $��_{app}\sim$3, in the jet of the TeV radio galaxy PKS 0625-35. Finally, we place a lower limit on the age of the Compact Symmetric Object (CSO) PKS 1718-649. We draw some preliminary conclusions on the relationship between pc-scale jets and $��$-ray emission in radio galaxies. We find that the VLBI core flux density correlates with the $��$-ray flux, as seen in blazars. On the other hand, the $��$-ray luminosity does not show any dependence on the core brightness temperature and core dominance, two indicators of Doppler boosting, suggesting that $��$-ray emission in radio galaxies is not driven by orientation-dependent effects., Main text: 22 pages, 22 figures, 11 tables. Appendix: 19 pages, 10 figures, 9 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics