397 research outputs found
Black-Hole Mass and Growth Rate at High Redshift
We present new H and K bands spectroscopy of 15 high luminosity active
galactic nuclei (AGNs) at redshifts 2.3-3.4 obtained on Gemini South. We
combined the data with spectra of additional 29 high-luminosity sources to
obtain a sample with 10^{45.2}<\lambda L_{\lambda}(5100A)<10^{47.3} ergs/sec
and black hole (BH) mass range, using reverberation mapping relationships based
on the H_beta method, of 10^{8.8}-10^{10.7} M_sun. We do not find a correlation
of L/L_Edd with M_BH but find a correlation with \lambda L_{\lambda}(5100A)
which might be due to selection effects. The L/L_Edd distribution is broad and
covers the range ~0.07-1.6, similar to what is observed in lower redshift,
lower luminosity AGNs. We suggest that this consistently measured and
calibrated sample gives the best representation of L/L_Edd at those redshifts
and note potential discrepancies with recent theoretical and observational
studies. The lower accretion rates are not in accord with growth scenarios for
BHs at such redshifts and the growth times of many of the sources are longer
than the age of the universe at the corresponding epochs. This suggests earlier
episodes of faster growth at z>~3 for those sources. The use of the C IV method
gives considerably different results and a larger scatter; this method seems to
be a poor M_BH and L/L_Edd estimator at very high luminosity.Comment: 8 pages (emulateapj), 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
An Over-Massive Black Hole in a Typical Star-Forming Galaxy, 2 Billion Years After the Big Bang
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies are generally
thought to coevolve, so that the SMBH achieves up to about 0.2 to 0.5% of the
host galaxy mass in the present day. The radiation emitted from the growing
SMBH is expected to affect star formation throughout the host galaxy. The
relevance of this scenario at early cosmic epochs is not yet established. We
present spectroscopic observations of a galaxy at redshift z = 3.328, which
hosts an actively accreting, extremely massive BH, in its final stages of
growth. The SMBH mass is roughly one-tenth the mass of the entire host galaxy,
suggesting that it has grown much more efficiently than the host, contrary to
models of synchronized coevolution. The host galaxy is forming stars at an
intense rate, despite the presence of a SMBH-driven gas outflow.Comment: Author's version, including the main paper and the Supplementary
Materials (16+21 pages, 3+3 figures
[O III] and X-ray Properties of a Complete Sample of Hard X-ray Selected AGNs in the Local Universe
We study the correlation between the [O III] and X-ray
luminosities of local Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), using a complete, hard
X-ray ( keV) selected sample in the Swift/BAT 9-month catalog. From our
optical spectroscopic observations at the South African Astronomical
Observatory and the literature, a catalog of [O III] line flux
for all 103 AGNs at Galactic latitudes of is complied.
Significant correlations with intrinsic X-ray luminosity () are
found both for observed () and extinction-corrected () luminosities, separately for X-ray unabsorbed and absorbed
AGNs. We obtain the regression form of and from the whole sample. The absorbed AGNs with low
(0.5\%) scattering fractions in soft X-rays show on average smaller and ratios than the
other absorbed AGNs, while those in edge-on host galaxies do not. These results
suggest that a significant fraction of this population are buried in tori with
small opening angles. By using these vs.
correlations, the X-ray luminosity function of local AGNs (including Compton
thick AGNs) in a standard population synthesis model gives much better
agreement with the [O III] luminosity function derived from the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey than previously reported. This confirms that hard
X-ray observations are a very powerful tool to find AGNs with high
completeness.Comment: 14 pages including 11 figures and 3 tables, accepted for publication
in ApJ. In this manuscript, the observed 14-195 keV luminosities in Table 1
have been corrected to be exactly the same as in the original Swift/BAT
9-month catalog. Accordingly, Figures 2(a) and 3(a) and a part of Tables 2
and 3 have been updated. The changes from the previous version are small and
do not affect the tex
Successor-Invariant First-Order Logic on Classes of Bounded Degree
We study the expressive power of successor-invariant first-order logic, which
is an extension of first-order logic where the usage of an additional successor
relation on the structure is allowed, as long as the validity of formulas is
independent on the choice of a particular successor. We show that when the
degree is bounded, successor-invariant first-order logic is no more expressive
than first-order logic
Magnetic fields and gas flows around circumnuclear starbursts
Radio continuum observations of barred galaxies revealed strong magnetic
fields of >= 50-100 muG in the circumnuclear starbursts. Such fields are
dynamically important and give rise to magnetic stress that causes inflow of
gas towards the center at a rate of several solar masses per year, possibly
along the spiral field seen in radio polarization and as optical dust lanes.
This may solve the long-standing question of how to feed active nuclei, and
explain the relation between the bolometric luminosity of AGN nuclei and the
star-formation rate of their hosts. The strong magnetic fields generated in
young galaxies may serve as the link between star formation and accretion onto
supermassive black holes. -- Magnetic fields of >= 160 muG strength were
measured in the central region of the almost edge-on starburst galaxy NGC 253.
Four filaments emerging from the inner disk delineate the boundaries of the
central outflow cone of hot gas. Strong Faraday rotation of the polarized
emission from the background disk indicates a large-scale helical field in the
outflow walls.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. To be published in 'The Central Kiloparsec in
Galactic Nuclei - Astronomy at High Angular Resolution 2011', Journal of
Physics Conf. Ser., IOP Publishin
AGN X-ray variability in the XMM-COSMOS survey
We took advantage of the observations carried out by XMM in the COSMOS field
during 3.5 years, to study the long term variability of a large sample of AGN
(638 sources), in a wide range of redshift (0.1<z<3.5) and X-ray luminosity
(L(2-10)). Both a simple statistical method to asses the
significance of variability, and the Normalized Excess Variance
() parameter, where used to obtain a quantitative measurement
of the variability. Variability is found to be prevalent in most AGN, whenever
we have good statistic to measure it, and no significant differences between
type-1 and type-2 AGN were found. A flat (slope -0.23+/-0.03) anti-correlation
between and X-ray luminosity is found, when significantly
variable sources are considered all together. When divided in three redshift
bins, the anti-correlation becomes stronger and evolving with z, with higher
redshift AGN being more variable. We prove however that this effect is due to
the pre-selection of variable sources: considering all the sources with
available measurement, the evolution in redshift disappears.
For the first time we were also able to study the long term X-ray variability
as a function of and Eddington ratio, for a large sample of AGN
spanning a wide range of redshift. An anti-correlation between
and is found, with the same slope of the
anti-correlation between and X-ray luminosity, suggesting
that the latter can be a byproduct of the former one. No clear correlation is
found between and the Eddington ratio in our sample.
Finally, no correlation is found between the X-ray and the
optical variability.Comment: 14 Pages, 13 figures. Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal on
December 6, 201
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
Compton Thick AGN in the XMM-COSMOS survey
Heavily obscured, Compton Thick (CT, NH>10^24 cm^-2) AGN may represent an
important phase in AGN/galaxy co-evolution and are expected to provide a
significant contribution to the cosmic X-ray background (CXB). Through direct
X-ray spectra analysis, we selected 39 heavily obscured AGN (NH>3x10^23 cm^-2)
in the 2 deg^2 XMM-COSMOS survey. After selecting CT AGN based on the fit of a
simple absorbed two power law model to the XMM data, the presence of CT AGN was
confirmed in 80% of the sources using deeper Chandra data and more complex
models. The final sample of CT AGN comprises 10 sources spanning a large range
of redshift and luminosity. We collected the multi-wavelength information
available for all these sources, in order to study the distribution of SMBH and
host properties, such as BH mass (M_BH), Eddington ratio (\lambda_Edd), stellar
mass (M*), specific star formation rate (sSFR) in comparison with a sample of
unobscured AGN. We find that highly obscured sources tend to have significantly
smaller M_BH and higher \lambda_edd with respect to unobscured ones, while a
weaker evolution in M* is observed. The sSFR of highly obscured sources is
consistent with the one observed in the main sequence of star forming galaxies,
at all redshift. We also present optical spectra, spectral energy distribution
(SED) and morphology for the sample of 10 CT AGN: all the available optical
spectra are dominated by the stellar component of the host galaxy, and a highly
obscured torus component is needed in the SED of the CT sources. Exploiting the
high resolution Hubble-ACS images available, we conclude that these highly
obscured sources have a significantly larger merger fraction with respect to
other X-ray selected samples of AGN. Finally we discuss implications in the
context of AGN/galaxy co-evolutionary models, and compare our results with the
predictions of CXB synthesis models.Comment: Revised version after referee comments. Accepted for publication in
Astronomy & Astrophysics on 25 November 2014. 23 pages, 2 tables, 16 figure
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