253 research outputs found
AGN's UV and X-ray luminosities in clumpy accretion flows
We consider the fuelling of the central massive black hole in Active Galactic
Nuclei, through an inhomogeneous accretion flow. Performing simple analytical
treatments, we show that shocks between elements (clumps) forming the accretion
flow may account for the UV and X-ray emission in AGNs. In this picture, a
cascade of shocks is expected, where optically thick shocks give rise to
optical/UV emission, while optically thin shocks give rise to X-ray emission.
The resulting blue bump temperature is found to be quite similar in different
AGNs. We obtain that the ratio of X-ray luminosity to UV luminosity is smaller
than unity, and that this ratio is smaller in massive objects compared to less
massive sources. This is in agreement with the observed ratio
and suggests a possible interpretation of the
anticorrelation.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in A&
How Common are the Magellanic Clouds?
We introduce a probabilistic approach to the problem of counting dwarf
satellites around host galaxies in databases with limited redshift information.
This technique is used to investigate the occurrence of satellites with
luminosities similar to the Magellanic Clouds around hosts with properties
similar to the Milky Way in the object catalog of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Our analysis uses data from SDSS Data Release 7, selecting candidate
Milky-Way-like hosts from the spectroscopic catalog and candidate analogs of
the Magellanic Clouds from the photometric catalog. Our principal result is the
probability for a Milky-Way-like galaxy to host N_{sat} close satellites with
luminosities similar to the Magellanic Clouds. We find that 81 percent of
galaxies like the Milky Way are have no such satellites within a radius of 150
kpc, 11 percent have one, and only 3.5 percent of hosts have two. The
probabilities are robust to changes in host and satellite selection criteria,
background-estimation technique, and survey depth. These results demonstrate
that the Milky Way has significantly more satellites than a typical galaxy of
its luminosity; this fact is useful for understanding the larger cosmological
context of our home galaxy.Comment: Updated to match published version. Added referenc
X-Ray Properties of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies with Very Small Broad-Line Widths
Narrow-line Seyfert\,1 galaxies (NLS1s) with very small broad-line widths
(say, FWHM(\hb) \la 1200\,\kms) represent the extreme type of Seyfert\,1
galaxies that have small black hole masses (\mbh) and/or high Eddington ratios
(\redd). Here we study the X-ray properties of a homogeneously and optically
selected sample of 13 such objects, termed as very narrow line Seyfert\,1
galaxies (VNLS1s), using archival \xmm\ data. It is found that the Fe K
emission line is at most weak in these objects. A soft X-ray excess is
ubiquitous, with the thermal temperatures falling within a strict range of
0.1--0.2\,keV. Our result highlights the puzzling independence of the thermal
temperature by extending the relations to even smaller FWHM(\hb), i.e., smaller
\mbh\ ( \msun) and/or higher \redd. The excess emission can be
modeled by a range of viable models, though the disk reflection and
Comptonization models generally give somewhat better fits over the smeared
absorption and the -free models. At the Eddington ratios around unity and
above, the X-ray spectral slopes in the 2--10\,keV band are systematically
flatter than the Risaliti et al.'s predictions of the relationship with \redd\
suggested previously. Short timescale (1--2 hours) X-ray variability is common,
which, together with the variability amplitude computed for some of the
objects, are supportive of the scenario that NLS1s are indeed AGN with
relatively small \mbh.Comment: 11 figures and 4 table. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
The Quasar SDSS J105041.35+345631.3: Black Hole Recoil or Extreme Double-Peaked Emitter?
The quasar SDSS J105041.35+345631.3 (z = 0.272) has broad emission lines
blueshifted by 3500 km/s relative to the narrow lines and the host galaxy. Such
an object may be a candidate for a recoiling supermassive black hole, binary
black hole, a superposition of two objects, or an unusual geometry for the
broad emission-line region. The absence of narrow lines at the broad line
redshift argues against superposition. New Keck spectra of J1050+3546 place
tight constraints on the binary model. The combination of large velocity shift
and symmetrical H-beta profile, as well as aspects of the narrow line spectrum,
make J1050+3546 an interesting candidate for black hole recoil. Other aspects
of the spectrum, however, suggest that the object is most likely an extreme
case of a ``double-peaked emitter.'' We discuss possible observational tests to
determine the true nature of this exceptional object.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX; substantial revision
Long-Term Profile Variability in Active Galactic Nuclei with Double-Peaked Balmer Emission Lines
An increasing number of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) exhibit broad,
double-peaked Balmer emission lines,which represent some of the best evidence
for the existence of relatively large-scale accretion disks in AGNs. A set of
20 double-peaked emitters have been monitored for nearly a decade in order to
observe long-term variations in the profiles of the double-peaked Balmer lines.
Variations generally occur on timescales of years, and are attributed to
physical changes in the accretion disk. Here we characterize the variability of
a subset of seven double-peaked emitters in a model independent way. We find
that variability is caused primarily by the presence of one or more discrete
"lumps" of excess emission; over a timescale of a year (and sometimes less)
these lumps change in amplitude and shape, but the projected velocity of these
lumps changes over much longer timescales (several years). We also find that
all of the objects exhibit red peaks that are stronger than the blue peak at
some epochs and/or blueshifts in the overall profile, contrary to the
expectations for a simple, circular accretion disk model, thus emphasizing the
need for asymmetries in the accretion disk. Comparisons with two simple models,
an elliptical accretion disk and a circular disk with a spiral arm, are unable
to reproduce all aspects of the observed variability, although both account for
some of the observed behaviors. Three of the seven objects have robust
estimates of the black hole masses. For these objects the observed variability
timescale is consistent with the expected precession timescale for a spiral
arm, but incompatible with that of an elliptical accretion disk. We suggest
that with the simple modification of allowing the spiral arm to be fragmented,
many of the observed variability patterns could be reproduced.Comment: 74 pages, 4 tables, 35 figure
Double-Peaked Low-Ionization Emission Lines in Active Galactic Nuclei
We present a new sample of 116 double-peaked Balmer line Active Galactic
Nuclei (AGN) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Double-peaked emission
lines are believed to originate in the accretion disks of AGN, a few hundred
gravitational radii (Rg) from the supermassive black hole. We investigate the
properties of the candidate disk emitters with respect to the full sample of
AGN over the same redshifts, focusing on optical, radio and X-ray flux, broad
line shapes and narrow line equivalent widths and line flux-ratios. We find
that the disk-emitters have medium luminosities (~10^44erg/s) and FWHM on
average six times broader than the AGN in the parent sample. The double-peaked
AGN are 1.6 times more likely to be radio-sources and are predominantly (76%)
radio quiet, with about 12% of the objects classified as LINERs. Statistical
comparison of the observed double-peaked line profiles with those produced by
axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric accretion disk models allows us to impose
constraints on accretion disk parameters. The observed Halpha line profiles are
consistent with accretion disks with inclinations smaller than 50 deg, surface
emissivity slopes of 1.0-2.5, outer radii larger than ~2000 Rg, inner radii
between 200-800Rg, and local turbulent broadening of 780-1800 km/s. The
comparison suggests that 60% of accretion disks require some form of asymmetry
(e.g., elliptical disks, warps, spiral shocks or hot spots).Comment: 60 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in AJ. For high
quality figures and full tables, please see
http://astro.princeton.edu/~iskra/disks.htm
The Origin of the 24-micron Excess in Red Galaxies
Observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope have revealed a population of
red-sequence galaxies with a significant excess in their 24-micron emission
compared to what is expected from an old stellar population. We identify 900
red galaxies with 0.15<z<0.3 from the AGN and Galaxy Evolution Survey (AGES)
selected from the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey Bootes field. Using Spitzer/MIPS,
we classify 89 (~10%) with 24-micron infrared excess (f24>0.3 mJy). We
determine the prevalence of AGN and star-formation activity in all the AGES
galaxies using optical line diagnostics and mid-IR color-color criteria. Using
the IRAC color-color diagram from the IRAC Shallow Survey, we find that 64% of
the 24-micron excess red galaxies are likely to have strong PAH emission
features in the 8-micron IRAC band. This fraction is significantly larger than
the 5% of red galaxies with f24<0.3 mJy that are estimated to have strong PAH
emission, suggesting that the infrared emission is largely due to
star-formation processes. Only 15% of the 24-micron excess red galaxies have
optical line diagnostics characteristic of star-formation (64% are classified
as AGN and 21% are unclassifiable). The difference between the optical and
infrared results suggest that both AGN and star-formation activity is occurring
simultaneously in many of the 24-micron excess red galaxies. These results
should serve as a warning to studies that exclusively use optical line
diagnostics to determine the dominant emission mechanism in the infrared and
other bands. We find that ~40% of the 24-micron excess red galaxies are edge-on
spiral galaxies with high optical extinctions. The remaining sources are likely
to be red galaxies whose 24-micron emission comes from a combination of
obscured AGN and star-formation activity.Comment: ApJ, accepted; 11 pages, 7 figures; corrected reference to IRAC
Shallow Survey in abstrac
The stellar content of low redshift radio galaxies from near-infrared spectroscopy
We present medium spectral resolution near-infrared (NIR) HK-band spectra for
8 low redshift (z<0.06) radio galaxies to study the NIR stellar properties of
their host galaxies. As a homogeneous comparison sample, we used 9 inactive
elliptical galaxies that were observed with similar resolution and wavelength
range. The aim of the study is to compare the NIR spectral properties of radio
galaxies to those of inactive early-type galaxies and, furthermore, produce the
first NIR HK-band spectra for low redshift radio galaxies. For both samples
spectral indices of several diagnostic absorption features, SiI(1.589microns),
CO(1.619microns), NaI(2.207microns), CaI(2.263microns), CO(>2.29microns), were
measured. To characterize the age of the populations, the measured EWs of the
absorption features were fitted with the corresponding theoretical evolutionary
curves of the EWs calculated by the stellar synthesis model. On average, EW(CO
2.29) of radio galaxies is somewhat greater than that of inactive ellipticals.
Most likely, EW(CO 2.29) is not significantly affected by dilution, and thus
indicating that elliptical galaxies containing AGN are in a different stage in
their evolution than inactive ellipticals. This is also supported by comparing
other NIR features, such as CaI and NaI, with each other. Absorption features
are consistent with the intermediate age stellar population, suggesting that
host galaxies contain both an old and intermediate age components. It is
consistent with previous optical spectroscopy studies which have shown evidence
on the intermediate age (~2 Gyr) stellar population of radio galaxies, and also
in some of the early-type galaxies. The existence of intermediate age
population is a link between the star formation episode, possibly induced by
interaction or merging event, and the triggering of the nuclear activity.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
The properties of Brightest Cluster Galaxies in the SDSS DR6 adaptive matched filter cluster catalogue
We study the properties of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) drawn from a
catalogue of more than 69000 clusters in the SDSS DR6 based on the adaptive
matched filter technique (AMF, Szabo et al., 2010). Our sample consists of more
than 14300 galaxies in the redshift range 0.1-0.3. We test the catalog by
showing that it includes well-known BCGs which lie in the SDSS footprint. We
characterize the BCGs in terms of r-band luminosities and optical colours as
well as their trends with redshift. In particular, we define and study the
fraction of blue BCGs, namely those that are likely to be missed by either
colour-based cluster surveys and catalogues. Richer clusters tend to have
brighter BCGs, however less dominant than in poorer systems. 4-9% of our BCGs
are at least 0.3 mag bluer in the g-r colour than the red-sequence at their
given redshift. Such a fraction decreases to 1-6% for clusters above a richness
of 50, where 3% of the BCGs are 0.5 mag below the red-sequence. A preliminary
morphological study suggests that the increase in the blue fraction at lower
richnesses may have a non-negligible contribution from spiral galaxies. We show
that a colour selection based on the g-r red-sequence or on a cut at colour u-r
>2.2 can lead to missing the majority of such blue BCGs. We also extend the
colour analysis to the UV range by cross-matching our catalogue with publicly
available data from Galex GR4 and GR5. We show a clear correlation between
offset from the optical red-sequence and the amount of UV-excess. Finally, we
cross-matched our catalogue with the ACCEPT cluster sample (Cavagnolo et al.,
2009), and find that blue BCGs tend to be in clusters with low entropy and
short cooling times. That is, the blue light is presumably due to recent star
formation associated to gas feeding by cooling flows. (abridged)Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, submitted to MNRA
The Mid-IR and X-ray Selected QSO Luminosity Function
We present the J-band luminosity function of 1838 mid-infrared and X-ray
selected AGNs in the redshift range 0<z<5.85. These luminosity functions are
constructed by combining the deep multi-wavelength broad-band observations from
the UV to the mid-IR of the NDWFS Bootes field with the X-ray observations of
the XBootes survey and the spectroscopic observations of the same field by
AGES. Our sample is primarily composed of IRAC-selected AGNs, targeted using
modifications of the Stern et al.(2005) criteria, complemented by MIPS 24
microns and X-ray selected AGNs to alleviate the biases of IRAC mid-IR
selection against z~4.5 quasars and AGNs faint with respect to their hosts.
This sample provides an accurate link between low and high redshift AGN
luminosity functions and does not suffer from the usual incompleteness of
optical samples at z~3. We find that the space density of the brightest quasars
strongly decreases from z=3 to z=0, while the space density of faint quasars is
at least flat, and possibly increasing, over the same redshift range. At z>3 we
observe a decrease in the space density of quasars of all brightnesses. We
model the luminosity function by a double power-law and find that its evolution
cannot be described by either pure luminosity or pure density evolution, but
must be a combination of both. Our best-fit model has bright and faint
power-law indices consistent with the low redshift measurements based on the
2QZ and 2SLAQ surveys and it generally agrees with the number of bright quasars
predicted by other LFs at all redshifts. If we construct the QSO luminosity
function using only the IRAC-selected AGNs, we find that the biases inherent to
this selection method significantly modify the behavior of phi*(z) only for z<1
and have no significant impact upon the characteristic magnitude M*_J(z).Comment: Corrected minor typo in equations (4) and (6). Accepted for
publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 56 pages + 6 tables + 16 figure
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