Shock break-out: how a GRB revealed the beginnings of a supernova

In February 2006, Swift caught a GRB in the act of turning into a supernova, and made the first ever direct observations of the break-out and early expansion of a supernova shock wave. GRB 060218 began with an exceptionally long burst of non-thermal gamma-rays, lasting over 2000 s, as a jet erupted through the surface of the star. While this was in progress, an optically-thick thermal component from the shock wave of the supernova explosion grew to prominence, and we were able to track the mildly relativistic expansion of this shell as the blackbody peak moved from the X-rays into the UV and optical bands. The initial radius of the shock implied that it was a blue supergiant which had exploded, but the lack of Hydrogen emission lines in the supernova spectrum indicated a more compact star. The most likely scenario is that the shock ploughed into the massive stellar wind of a Wolf-Rayet progenitor, with the shock breaking out and becoming visible to us once it reached the radius where the wind became optically-thin. I present the Swift observations of this landmark event, and discuss the new questions and answers it leaves us with.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A, Proceedings of the Royal Society Discussion meeting on Gamma-Ray Bursts, September 18-20, 200

Cosmic Feedback from AGN

Accretion onto the massive black hole at the centre of a galaxy can feed energy and momentum into its surroundings via radiation, winds and jets. Feedback due to radiation pressure can lock the mass of the black hole onto the M-sigma relation, and shape the final stellar bulge of the galaxy. Feedback due to the kinetic power of jets can prevent massive galaxies greatly increasing their stellar mass, by heating gas which would otherwise cool radiatively. The mechanisms involved in cosmic feedback are discussed and illustrated with observations.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, Proceedings IAU Symposium 267, Co-Evolution of Central Black Holes and Galaxie

The h-index in Australian Astronomy

The Hirsch (2005) h-index is now widely used as a metric to compare individual researchers. To evaluate it in the context of Australian Astronomy, the h-index for every member of the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) is found using NASA's Astrophysics Data System Bibliographic Services (ADS). Percentiles of the h-index distribution are detailed for a variety of categories of ASA members, including students. This enables a list of the top ten Australian researchers by h-index to be produced. These top researchers have h-index values in the range 53<h<77, which is less than that recently reported for the American Astronomical Society Membership. We suggest that membership of extremely large consortia such as SDSS may partially explain the difference. We further suggest that many student ASA members with large h-index values have probably already received their Ph.D.'s and need to upgrade their ASA membership status. To attempt to specify the h-index distribution relative to opportunity, we also detail the percentiles of its distribution by years since Ph.D. award date. This shows a steady increase in h-index with seniority, as can be expected.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australi

Publication and citation statistics for UK astronomers

This article presents a survey of publication and citation statistics for 835 UK professional astronomers: the majority of academics and contract researchers within the UK astronomical community. I provide histograms of these bibliometrics for the whole sample as well as of the median values for the individual departments. I discuss the distribution of top bibliometric performers in the sample, and make some remarks on the usage of bibliometrics in a real-world assessment exercise.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, added bibliograph

XMM-Newton observations of the Seyfert 1 AGN H0557-385

We present XMM-Newton observations of the Seyfert 1 AGN H0557-385. We have conducted a study into the warm absorber present in this source, and using high-resolution RGS data we find that the absorption can be characterised by two phases: a phase with log ionisation parameter xi of 0.50 (where xi is in units of ergs cm/s) and a column of 0.2e21 cm^-2, and a phase with log xi of 1.62 and a column of 1.3e22 cm^-2. An iron K alpha line is detected. Neutral absorption is also present in the source, and we discuss possible origins for this. On the assumption that the ionised absorbers originate as an outflow from the inner edge of the torus, we use a new method for finding the volume filling factor. Both phases of H0557-385 have small volume filling factors (< 1%). We also derive the volume filling factors for a sample of 23 AGN using this assumption and for the absorbers with log xi > 0.7 we find reasonable agreement with the filling factors obtained through the alternative method of equating the momentum flow of the absorbers to the momentum loss of the radiation field. By comparing the filling factors obtained by the two methods, we infer that some absorbers with log xi < 0.7 occur at significantly larger distances from the nucleus than the inner edge of the torus.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

Intrinsic absorbers in BL Lac objects: the XMM-Newton view

We present XMM-Newton observations of four BL Lac objects (1H1219+301, H1426+428, Markarian 501 and PKS 0548-322), which have been found with past X-ray missions to contain evidence of broad soft X-ray absorption features. Observations with the high resolution Reflection Grating Spectrometers on XMM-Newton provide the best chance yet of investigating these features. No broad absorption features are observed in any of the objects. Neither do we find convincing evidence for narrow emission and absorption lines in the RGS spectra. We discuss the history of observations of broad absorption features in these four objects, finding that if the features exist then they must be transient, and that - given the frequency of reported observations of them - we can rule out the existence of transient broad absorption features in these objects at 93% confidence.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&

The nature and origin of Seyfert warm absorbers

We collate the results of recent high resolution X-ray spectroscopic observations of 23 AGN, and use the resulting information to try to provide answers to some of the main open questions about warm absorbers: where do they originate, what effect do they have on their host galaxies, and what is their importance within the energetics and dynamics of the AGN system as a whole? We find that the warm absorbers of nearby Seyferts and certain QSOs are most likely to originate in outflows from the dusty torus, and that the kinetic luminosity of these outflows accounts for well under 1% of the bolometric luminosities of the AGN. Our analysis supports, however, the view that the relativistic outflows recently observed in two PG quasars have their origin in accretion disc winds, although the energetic importance of these outflows is similar to that of the Seyfert warm absorbers. We find that the observed soft X-ray absorbing ionisation phases fill less than 10% of the available volume. Finally, we show that the amount of matter processed through an AGN outflow system, over the lifetime of the AGN, is probably large enough to have a significant influence on the evolution of the host galaxy and of the AGN itself.Comment: v2: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, minor typos correcte

The two INTEGRAL X-ray transients IGR J17091--3624 and IGR J17098--3628: a multi-wavelength long term campaign

IGR J17091-3624 and IGR J17098-3628 are two X-ray transients discovered by INTEGRAL and classified as possible black hole candidates (BHCs). We present here the results obtained from the analysis of multi-wavelength data sets collected by different instruments from 2005 until the end of 2007 on both sources. IGR J17098-3628 has been regularly detected by INTEGRAL and RXTE over the entire period of the observational campaign; it was also observed with pointed observations by XMM and Swift/XRT in 2005 and 2006 and exhibited flux variations not linked with the change of any particular spectral features. IGR J17091-3624 was initially in quiescence (after a period of activity between 2003 April and 2004 April) and it was then detected again in outburst in the XRT field of view during a Swift observation of IGR J17098--3628 on 2007 July 9. The observations during quiescence provide an upper limit to the 0.2-10 keV luminosity, while the observations in outburst cover the transition from the hard to the soft state. Moreover, we obtain a refined X-ray position for IGR J17091-3624 from the Swift/XRT observations during the outburst in 2007. The new position is inconsistent with the previously proposed radio counterpart. We identify in VLA archive data a compact radio source consistent with the new X-ray position and propose it as the radio counterpart of the X-ray transient.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap