The evidence for jet-cloud interactions in a sample of high/intermediate-redshift radio galaxies

We present the result obtained from a study, based on long-slit spectroscopy, of the kinematics and ionization mechanisms of the line-emitting gas for a sample of four high/intermediate-redshift radio galaxies. In two of the galaxies (3C352 and 3C435A) the radio sources are of the same scale as the emission-line regions, whereas in the other two (3C34 and 3C330) the radio sources are extended on a larger scale than the emission-line structures. We see evidence for shock-acceleration of the emission-line gas in the extended regions of all the galaxies, even in the largest radio sources of our sample, in which the radio hot spots have passed the extended gas of the galaxies. The extended regions present highly disturbed kinematics (line-splitting and/or underlying broad components), which are difficult to explain if we do not consider a strong interaction between the radio-emitting components and the ambient gas. However, the dominant ionization mechanism of the line-emitting gas remains uncertain. We have compared the optical diagnostic line ratios of the galaxies in our sample with both AGN-photoionization and shock-ionization models. We find a lack of consistency in explaining the main ionization mechanism of the emission-line gas. This suggest that, if the extended regions are shock-ionized, some of the assumptions implicit in the shock models may need to be reconsidered. In addition, we have investigated the nebular continuum cointribution to the UV excess in the galaxies of our sample. We find a substantial nebular emission contribution to the UV continuum in all the cases. However, after the subtraction iof the nebular component, a significant UV excess remains in the extended nebulae of most of the objects.Comment: 33 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. (Abstract shortened for astro-ph

Green function techniques in the treatment of quantum transport at the molecular scale

The theoretical investigation of charge (and spin) transport at nanometer length scales requires the use of advanced and powerful techniques able to deal with the dynamical properties of the relevant physical systems, to explicitly include out-of-equilibrium situations typical for electrical/heat transport as well as to take into account interaction effects in a systematic way. Equilibrium Green function techniques and their extension to non-equilibrium situations via the Keldysh formalism build one of the pillars of current state-of-the-art approaches to quantum transport which have been implemented in both model Hamiltonian formulations and first-principle methodologies. We offer a tutorial overview of the applications of Green functions to deal with some fundamental aspects of charge transport at the nanoscale, mainly focusing on applications to model Hamiltonian formulations.Comment: Tutorial review, LaTeX, 129 pages, 41 figures, 300 references, submitted to Springer series "Lecture Notes in Physics