Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies in the AKARI All Sky Survey

We present a new catalog of 118 Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) and one Hyperluminous Infrared Galaxy (HLIRG) by crossmatching AKARI all-sky survey with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10 (SDSS DR10) and the Final Data Release of the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS). 40 of the ULIRGs and one HLIRG are new identifications. We find that ULIRGs are interacting pair galaxies or ongoing/post mergers. This is consistent with the widely accepted view: ULIRGs are major mergers of disk galaxies. We confirm the previously known positive trend between the AGN fraction and IR luminosity. We show that ULIRGs have a large off-set from the 'main sequence' up to z~1; their off-set from the z~2 'main sequence' is relatively smaller. We find a consistent result with the previous studies showing that compared to local star forming SDSS galaxies of similar mass, local ULIRGs have lower oxygen abundances. We for the first time demonstrate that ULIRGs follow the fundamental metallicity relation (FMR). The scatter of ULIRGs around the FMR (0.09 dex - 0.5 dex) is comparable with the scatter of z~2-3 galaxies. Their optical colors show that ULIRGs are mostly blue galaxies and this agrees with previous findings. We provide the largest local (0.050 < z < 0.487) ULIRG catalog with stellar masses, SFRs, gas metallicities and optical colors. Our catalog provides us active galaxies analogous to high-z galaxies in the local Universe where they can be rigorously scrutinized.Comment: 31 pages, 19 figure

The Size of the Narrow-Line Emitting Region in the Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 5548 from Emission-Line Variability

The narrow [O III] 4959, 5007 emission-line fluxes in the spectrum of the well-studied Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 are shown to vary with time. From this we show that the narrow line-emitting region has a radius of only 1-3 pc and is denser (n ~ 10^5 cm^{-3}) than previously supposed. The [O III] line width is consistent with virial motions at this radius given previous determinations of the black hole mass.Since the [O III] emission-line flux is usually assumed to be constant and is therefore used to calibrate spectroscopic monitoring data, the variability has ramifications for the long-term secular variations of continuum and emission-line fluxes, though it has no effect on shorter-term reverberation studies. We present corrected optical continuum and broad Hbeta emission-line light curves for the period 1988 to 2008.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 6 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

Velocity-resolved reverberation mapping of five bright Seyfert 1 galaxies

We present the first results from a reverberation-mapping campaign undertaken during the first half of 2012, with additional data on one AGN (NGC 3227) from a 2014 campaign. Our main goals are (1) to determine the black hole masses from continuum-Hβ reverberation signatures, and (2) to look for velocity-dependent time delays that might be indicators of the gross kinematics of the broad-line region. We successfully measure Hbeta time delays and black hole masses for five AGNs, four of which have previous reverberation mass measurements. The values measured here are in agreement with earlier estimates, though there is some intrinsic scatter beyond the formal measurement errors. We observe velocity dependent Hβ lags in each case, and find that the patterns have changed in the intervening five years for three AGNs that were also observed in 2007.PostprintPeer reviewe

ON THE SCATTER IN THE RADIUS-LUMINOSITY RELATIONSHIP FOR ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI

We investigate and quantify the observed scatter in the empirical relationship between the broad line region size R and the luminosity of the active galactic nucleus (AGN), in order to better understand its origin. This study is motivated by the indispensable role of this relationship in the mass estimation of cosmologically distant black holes, but may also be relevant to the recently proposed application of this relationship for measuring cosmic distances. We study six nearby reverberation-mapped AGN for which simultaneous UV and optical monitoring data exist. We also examine the long-term optical luminosity variations of Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 and employ Monte Carlo simulations to study the effects of the intrinsic variability of individual objects on the scatter in the global relationship for a sample of ~40 AGN. We find the scatter in this relationship has a correctable dependence on color. For individual AGN, the size of the Hbeta emitting region has a steeper dependence on the nuclear optical luminosity than on the UV luminosity, that can introduce a scatter of ~0.08 dex into the global relationship, due the non-linear relationship between the variations in the ionizing continuum and those in the optical continuum. Also, our analysis highlights the importance of understanding and minimizing the scatter in the relationship traced by the intrinsic variability of individual AGN, since it propagates directly into the global relationship. We find that using the UV luminosity as a substitute for the ionizing luminosity can reduce a sizable fraction of the current observed scatter of ~0.13 dex.Comment: Accepted by Astrophysical Journal; 18 pages, 8 tables, 6 figure

Upper limits on Einstein’s weak equivalence principle placed by uncertainties of dispersion measures of fast radio bursts

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are astronomical transients with millisecond timescales occurring at cosmological distances. The observed time lag between different energies of each FRB is well described by the inverse-square law of the observed frequency, i.e., dispersion measure. Therefore, FRBs provide one of the ideal laboratories to test Einstein’s weak equivalence principle (WEP): the hypothetical time lag between photons with different energies under a gravitational potential. If WEP is violated, such evidence should be exposed within the observational uncertainties of dispersion measures, unless the WEP violation also depends on the inverse-square of the observed frequency. In this work, we constrain the difference of gamma parameters (Δγ) between photons with different energies using the observational uncertainties of FRB dispersion measures, where Δγ=0 for Einstein’s general relativity. Adopting the averaged ‘Shapiro time delay’ for cosmological sources, FRB 121002 at z=1.6±0.3 and FRB 180817.J1533+42 at z=1.0±0.2 place the most stringent constraints of logΔγγ/rE)E is the energy ratio between the photons. The former is about three orders of magnitude lower than those of other astrophysical sources in previous works under the same formalization of the Shapiro time delay while the latter is comparable to the tightest constraint so far

The size of the narrow-line-emitting region in the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 from emission-line variability

The narrow [O III] 4959, 5007 emission-line fluxes in the spectrum of the well-studied Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 are shown to vary with time. From this we show that the narrow-line-emitting region has a radius of only 1-3 pc and is denser (n_e ~ 10^5 cm^-3) than previously supposed. The [O III] line width is consistent with virial motions at this radius given previous determinations of the black hole mass. Since the [O III] emission-line flux is usually assumed to be constant and is therefore used to calibrate spectroscopic monitoring data, the variability has ramifications for the long-term secular variations of continuum and emission-line fluxes, though it has no effect on shorter-term reverberation studies. We present corrected optical continuum and broad Hbeta emission-line light curves for the period 1988-2008