272 research outputs found
A view of the narrow-line region in the infrared: active galactic nuclei with resolved fine-structure lines in the Spitzer archive
We queried the Spitzer archive for high-resolution observations with the
Infrared Spectrograph of optically selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) for
the purpose of identifying sources with resolved fine-structure lines that
would enable studies of the narrow-line region (NLR) at mid-infrared
wavelengths. By combining 298 Spitzer spectra with 6 Infrared Space Observatory
spectra, we present kinematic information of the NLR for 81 z<=0.3 AGN. We used
the [NeV], [OIV], [NeIII], and [SIV] lines, whose fluxes correlate well with
each other, to probe gas photoionized by the AGN. We found that the widths of
the lines are, on average, increasing with the ionization potential of the
species that emit them. No correlation of the line width with the critical
density of the corresponding transition was found. The velocity dispersion of
the gas, sigma, is systematically higher than that of the stars, sigma_*, in
the AGN host galaxy, and it scales with the mass of the central black hole,
M_BH. Further correlations between the line widths and luminosities L, and
between L and M_BH, are suggestive of a three dimensional plane connecting
log(M_BH) to a linear combination of log(sigma) and log(L). Such a plane can be
understood within the context of gas motions that are driven by AGN feedback
mechanisms, or virialized gas motions with a power-law dependence of the NLR
radius on the AGN luminosity. The M_BH estimates obtained for 35 type 2 AGN
from this plane are consistent with those obtained from the M_BH-sigma_*
relation.Comment: ApJ, revised to match the print versio
Genie: A Generator of Natural Language Semantic Parsers for Virtual Assistant Commands
To understand diverse natural language commands, virtual assistants today are
trained with numerous labor-intensive, manually annotated sentences. This paper
presents a methodology and the Genie toolkit that can handle new compound
commands with significantly less manual effort. We advocate formalizing the
capability of virtual assistants with a Virtual Assistant Programming Language
(VAPL) and using a neural semantic parser to translate natural language into
VAPL code. Genie needs only a small realistic set of input sentences for
validating the neural model. Developers write templates to synthesize data;
Genie uses crowdsourced paraphrases and data augmentation, along with the
synthesized data, to train a semantic parser. We also propose design principles
that make VAPL languages amenable to natural language translation. We apply
these principles to revise ThingTalk, the language used by the Almond virtual
assistant. We use Genie to build the first semantic parser that can support
compound virtual assistants commands with unquoted free-form parameters. Genie
achieves a 62% accuracy on realistic user inputs. We demonstrate Genie's
generality by showing a 19% and 31% improvement over the previous state of the
art on a music skill, aggregate functions, and access control.Comment: To appear in PLDI 201
The Mean Star-Forming Properties of QSO Host Galaxies
Quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) occur in galaxies in which supermassive black
holes (SMBHs) are growing substantially through rapid accretion of gas. Many
popular models of the co-evolutionary growth of galaxies and SMBHs predict that
QSOs are also sites of substantial recent star formation, mediated by important
processes, such as major mergers, which rapidly transform the nature of
galaxies. A detailed study of the star-forming properties of QSOs is a critical
test of such models. We present a far-infrared Herschel/PACS study of the mean
star formation rate (SFR) of a sample of spectroscopically observed QSOs to z~2
from the COSMOS extragalactic survey. This is the largest sample to date of
moderately luminous AGNs studied using uniform, deep far-infrared photometry.
We study trends of the mean SFR with redshift, black hole mass, nuclear
bolometric luminosity and specific accretion rate (Eddington ratio). To
minimize systematics, we have undertaken a uniform determination of SMBH
properties, as well as an analysis of important selection effects within
spectroscopic QSO samples that influence the interpretation of SFR trends. We
find that the mean SFRs of these QSOs are consistent with those of normal
massive star-forming galaxies with a fixed scaling between SMBH and galaxy mass
at all redshifts. No strong enhancement in SFR is found even among the most
rapidly accreting systems, at odds with several co-evolutionary models.
Finally, we consider the qualitative effects on mean SFR trends from different
assumptions about the star-forming properties of QSO hosts and redshift
evolution of the SMBH-galaxy relationship. While limited currently by
uncertainties, valuable constraints on AGN-galaxy co-evolution can emerge from
our approach.Comment: 10 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Trakhtenbrot's Theorem in Coq, A Constructive Approach to Finite Model Theory
We study finite first-order satisfiability (FSAT) in the constructive setting
of dependent type theory. Employing synthetic accounts of enumerability and
decidability, we give a full classification of FSAT depending on the
first-order signature of non-logical symbols. On the one hand, our development
focuses on Trakhtenbrot's theorem, stating that FSAT is undecidable as soon as
the signature contains an at least binary relation symbol. Our proof proceeds
by a many-one reduction chain starting from the Post correspondence problem. On
the other hand, we establish the decidability of FSAT for monadic first-order
logic, i.e. where the signature only contains at most unary function and
relation symbols, as well as the enumerability of FSAT for arbitrary enumerable
signatures. All our results are mechanised in the framework of a growing Coq
library of synthetic undecidability proofs
A Hierarchy of Polynomial Kernels
In parameterized algorithmics, the process of kernelization is defined as a
polynomial time algorithm that transforms the instance of a given problem to an
equivalent instance of a size that is limited by a function of the parameter.
As, afterwards, this smaller instance can then be solved to find an answer to
the original question, kernelization is often presented as a form of
preprocessing. A natural generalization of kernelization is the process that
allows for a number of smaller instances to be produced to provide an answer to
the original problem, possibly also using negation. This generalization is
called Turing kernelization. Immediately, questions of equivalence occur or,
when is one form possible and not the other. These have been long standing open
problems in parameterized complexity. In the present paper, we answer many of
these. In particular, we show that Turing kernelizations differ not only from
regular kernelization, but also from intermediate forms as truth-table
kernelizations. We achieve absolute results by diagonalizations and also
results on natural problems depending on widely accepted complexity theoretic
assumptions. In particular, we improve on known lower bounds for the kernel
size of compositional problems using these assumptions
A Tight Correlation Between Millimeter and X-ray Emission in Accreting Massive Black Holes from <100 Milliarcsecond-resolution ALMA Observations
Recent studies have proposed that the nuclear millimeter continuum emission
observed in nearby active galactic nuclei (AGN) could be created by the same
population of electrons that gives rise to the X-ray emission that is
ubiquitously observed in accreting black holes. We present the results of a
dedicated high spatial resolution (60-100 milliarcsecond) ALMA campaign
on a volume-limited ( keV) selected
radio-quiet AGN. We find an extremely high detection rate (25/26 or
), which shows that nuclear emission at mm-wavelengths is
nearly ubiquitous in accreting SMBHs. Our high-resolution observations show a
tight correlation between the nuclear (1-23 pc) 100GHz and the intrinsic X-ray
emission (1 scatter of dex). The ratio between the 100GHz
continuum and the X-ray emission does not show any correlation with column
density, black hole mass, Eddington ratio or star formation rate, which
suggests that the 100GHz emission can be used as a proxy of SMBH accretion over
a very broad range of these parameters. The strong correlation between 100GHz
and X-ray emission in radio-quiet AGN could be used to estimate the column
density based on the ratio between the observed 2-10keV () and 100GHz () fluxes. Specifically, a
ratio strongly
suggests that a source is heavily obscured []. Our work shows the potential of ALMA continuum
observations to detect heavily obscured AGN (up to an optical depth of one at
100GHz, i.e. ), and to identify binary
SMBHs with separations pc, which cannot be probed by current X-ray
facilities.Comment: ApJL in pres
Inferring Compton-thick AGN candidates at z>2 with Chandra using the >8 keV restframe spectral curvature
To fully understand cosmic black hole growth we need to constrain the
population of heavily obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) at the peak of
cosmic black hole growth (1-3). Sources with obscuring column densities
higher than atoms , called Compton-thick
(CT) AGN, can be identified by excess X-ray emission at 20-30 keV, called
the "Compton hump". We apply the recently developed Spectral Curvature (SC)
method to high-redshift AGN (2<z<5) detected with Chandra. This method
parametrizes the characteristic "Compton hump" feature cosmologically
redshifted into the X-ray band at observed energies <10 keV. We find good
agreement in CT AGN found using the SC method and bright sources fit using
their full spectrum with X-ray spectroscopy. In the Chandra deep field south,
we measure a CT fraction of (3/17) for sources with
observed luminosity erg . In the
Cosmological evolution survey (COSMOS), we find an observed CT fraction of
(40/272) or when corrected for
the survey sensitivity. When comparing to low redshift AGN with similar X-ray
luminosities, our results imply the CT AGN fraction is consistent with having
no redshift evolution. Finally, we provide SC equations that can be used to
find high-redshift CT AGN (z>1) for current (XMM-Newton) and future (eROSITA
and ATHENA) X-ray missions.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Enhanced Star Formation in Narrow Line Seyfert 1 AGN revealed by Spitzer
We present new low resolution Spitzer mid-infrared spectroscopy of a sample
of 20 ROSAT selected local Narrow Line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s). We detect
strong AGN continuum in all and clear PAH emission in 70% of the sources. The
6.2 micron PAH luminosity spans three orders of magnitudes, from ~10^(39) erg/s
to ~10^(42) erg/s providing strong evidence for intense ongoing star formation
in the circumnuclear regions of these sources. Using the IRS/Spitzer archive we
gather a large number of additional NLS1s and their broad line counterparts
(BLS1s) and constructed NLS1 and BLS1 sub-samples to compare them in various
ways. The comparison shows a clear separation according to FWHM(H_beta) such
that objects with narrower broad H_beta lines are the strongest PAH emitters.
We test this division in various ways trying to remove biases due to luminosity
and aperture size. Specifically, we find that star formation activity around
NLS1 AGN is larger than around BLS1 of the same AGN luminosity. The above
result seems to hold over the entire range of distance and luminosity. Moreover
the star formation rate is higher in low black hole mass and high L/L_Edd
systems indicating that black hole growth and star formation are occurring
simultaneously.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables. Now accepted in MNRA
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