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Blind and pointed Sunyaev-Zel'dovich observations with the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager
In this thesis I introduce the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager. I analyse observations towards known galaxy clusters and I present the initial results from a blind survey for galaxy clusters.In this thesis I discuss my work on the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI). I focus on the detection of Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) signatures at 14-18GHz.
Once the background science and operation of the instrument are described I proceed to present my contribution to the calibration of AMI, including: primary beam measurements; refinements to the known antenna geometry and flagging geostationary satellite interference. This is followed by an outline of the software that I have developed to subtract sources from visibilities, concatenate data from multiple observations, simulate data, and perform jack-knife tests to evaluate the magnitude of systematic errors.
The Bayesian analysis that I use to obtain parameter estimates and to quantify the significance of putative SZ detections is described. I perform realistic simulations of clusters and use these to characterise
the analysis. I then, for the first time, apply the analysis to data from the AMI blind cluster survey. I identify several previously unknown
SZ decrements.
Finally, I conduct pointed observations towards a high luminosity subsample of eight clusters from the Local Cluster Substructure Survey
(LoCuSS). For each of these I provide probability distributions of parameters such as mass, radius, and temperature. I compare my
results to those in the literature and find an overall agreement
Deep radio observations of the radio halo of the bullet cluster 1E 0657-55.8
We present deep 1.1-3.1 GHz Australia Telescope Compact Array observations of
the radio halo of the bullet cluster, 1E 0657-55.8. In comparison to existing
images of this radio halo the detection in our images is at higher
significance. The radio halo is as extended as the X-ray emission in the
direction of cluster merger but is significantly less extended than the X-ray
emission in the perpendicular direction. At low significance we detect a faint
second peak in the radio halo close to the X-ray centroid of the smaller
sub-cluster (the bullet) suggesting that, similarly to the X-ray emission, the
radio halo may consist of two components. Finally, we find that the distinctive
shape of the western edge of the radio halo traces out the X-ray detected bow
shock. The radio halo morphology and the lack of strong point-to-point
correlations between radio, X-ray and weak-lensing properties suggests that the
radio halo is still being formed. The colocation of the X-ray shock with a
distinctive radio brightness edge illustrates that the shock is influencing the
structure of the radio halo. These observations support the theory that shocks
and turbulence influence the formation and evolution of radio halo synchrotron
emission.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, 3 tables. Accepted by MNRA
Another shock for the Bullet cluster, and the source of seed electrons for radio relics
With Australia Telescope Compact Array observations, we detect a highly
elongated Mpc-scale diffuse radio source on the eastern periphery of the Bullet
cluster 1E0657-55.8, which we argue has the positional, spectral and
polarimetric characteristics of a radio relic. This powerful relic (2.3+/-0.1 x
10^25 W Hz^-1) consists of a bright northern bulb and a faint linear tail. The
bulb emits 94% of the observed radio flux and has the highest surface
brightness of any known relic. Exactly coincident with the linear tail we find
a sharp X-ray surface brightness edge in the deep Chandra image of the cluster
-- a signature of a shock front in the hot intracluster medium (ICM), located
on the opposite side of the cluster to the famous bow shock. This new example
of an X-ray shock coincident with a relic further supports the hypothesis that
shocks in the outer regions of clusters can form relics via diffusive shock
(re-)acceleration. Intriguingly, our new relic suggests that seed electrons for
reacceleration are coming from a local remnant of a radio galaxy, which we are
lucky to catch before its complete disruption. If this scenario, in which a
relic forms when a shock crosses a well-defined region of the ICM polluted with
aged relativistic plasma -- as opposed to the usual assumption that seeds are
uniformly mixed in the ICM -- is also the case for other relics, this may
explain a number of peculiar properties of peripheral relics.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRA
Surface brightness discontinuities in radio halos. Insights from the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey
Dynamical motions in the ICM can imprint distinctive features on the X-ray
images that map the thermal emission from clusters, such as sharp surface
brightness discontinuities due to shocks and cold fronts. The gas dynamics
during cluster mergers may also drive large-scale turbulence in the ICM which
in turn generates extended synchrontron sources known as radio halos. The
presence of surface brightness edges in the thermal gas of clusters has been
established by a number of X-ray observations. In contrast, edges in radio
halos have been observed only in a handful of cases. Our goal is to search for
new radio surface brightness discontinuities in the ICM. We inspected the
images of the Bullet Cluster and the other 25 radio halos reported in the
MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey. To aid the identification of surface
brightness discontinuities, we applied a gradient filtering edge detection
method to the radio images. We found that the adopted filtering technique is
helpful to identify surface brightness edges in radio images, allowing us to
identify at least one gradient in half of the radio halos studied. For the
Bullet Cluster, we found excellent agreement between the locations of the 4
radio discontinuities detected and X-ray edges. This similarity informs us that
there is substantial interplay between thermal and non-thermal components in
galaxy clusters. This interplay is likely due to the forzen-in ICM magnetic
field which mediates the advection of cosmic rays while being dragged by
thermal gas flows. We conclude that radio halos are shaped by dynamical motions
in the ICM and that they often display surface brightness discontinuities
apparently co-located with edges in the thermal gas emission. Our results
demonstrate that new and future generations of radio telescopes will provide a
complementary approach to X-rays to efficiently detect shocks and cold fronts
in the ICM.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 1 table (excluding Appendixes). Abstract
abridged to meet arXiv requirements. Submitted to A&
Radio constraints on dark matter annihilation in Canes Venatici I with LOFAR
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.Dwarf galaxies are dark matter-dominated and therefore promising targets for the search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are well-known candidates for dark matter. Annihilation of WIMPs produce ultra-relativistic cosmic-ray electrons and positrons that emit synchrotron radiation in the presence of magnetic fields. For typical magnetic field strengths (few G) and (GeV-TeV) WIMP masses (and thus typical electron energies of the same order) this emission peaks at hundreds of MHz. Here, we use the non-detection of 150-MHz radio continuum emission from the dwarf spheroidal galaxy `Canes Venatici I' with the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) to derive constraints on the annihilation cross section of WIMPs into primary electron-positron and other fundamental particle-antiparticle pairs. In this first-of-its-kind LOFAR study, we obtain new constraints on annihilating WIMP dark matter (DM). Using conservative estimates for the magnetic field strengths and diffusion coefficients, we obtain limits that are comparable with those by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) using gamma-ray observations. Assuming s-wave annihilation and WIMPs making up 100% of the DM density, our limits exclude several thermal WIMP realisations in the -GeV mass range. A more ambitious multi-wavelength and multi-target LOFAR study could improve these limits by a few orders of magnitude.Peer reviewe
Filaments in the southern giant lobe of Centaurus A : Constraints on nature and origin from modelling and GMRT observations
Date of acceptance: 22/05/2014We present results from imaging of the radio filaments in the southern giant lobe of CentaurusA using data from Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope observations at 325 and 235 MHz, and outcomes from filament modelling. The observations reveal a rich filamentary structure, largely matching the morphology at 1.4 GHz. We find no clear connection of the filaments to the jet. We seek to constrain the nature and origin of the vertex and vortex filaments associated with the lobe and their role in high-energy particle acceleration. We deduce that these filaments are at most mildly overpressuredwith respect to the global lobe plasma showing no evidence of largescale efficient Fermi I-type particle acceleration, and persist for ~2-3 Myr. We demonstrate that the dwarf galaxy KK 196 (AM 1318-444) cannot account for the features, and that surface plasma instabilities, the internal sausage mode and radiative instabilities are highly unlikely. An internal tearing instability and the kink mode are allowed within the observational and growth time constraints and could develop in parallel on different physical scales. We interpret the origin of the vertex and vortex filaments in terms of weak shocks from transonic magnetohydrodynamical turbulence or from a moderately recent jet activity of the parent AGN, or an interplay of both.Peer reviewe
Transient study using LoTSS -- framework development and preliminary results
We present a search for transient radio sources on time-scales of seconds to
hours at 144 MHz using the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS). This search is
conducted by examining short time-scale images derived from the LoTSS data. To
allow imaging of LoTSS on short time-scales, a novel imaging and filtering
strategy is introduced. This includes sky model source subtraction, no cleaning
or primary beam correction, a simple source finder, fast filtering schemes and
source catalogue matching. This new strategy is first tested by injecting
simulated transients, with a range of flux densities and durations, into the
data. We find the limiting sensitivity to be 113 and 6 mJy for 8 second and 1
hour transients respectively. The new imaging and filtering strategies are
applied to 58 fields of the LoTSS survey, corresponding to LoTSS-DR1 (2% of the
survey). One transient source is identified in the 8 second and 2 minute
snapshot images. The source shows one minute duration flare in the 8 hour
observation. Our method puts the most sensitive constraints on/estimates of the
transient surface density at low frequencies at time-scales of seconds to
hours; at 1 hour at a sensitivity of 6.3
mJy; at 2 minutes at a sensitivity of 30
mJy; and at 8 seconds at a sensitivity of
113 mJy. In the future, we plan to apply the strategies presented in this paper
to all LoTSS data.Comment: submitted to MNRA
Limits on long-time-scale radio transients at 150 MHz using the TGSS ADR1 and LoTSS DR2 catalogues
We present a search for transient radio sources on timescales of 2 to 9 yr at
150 MHz. This search is conducted by comparing the first Alternative Data
Release of the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS ADR1) and the second data release of
the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS DR2). The overlapping survey area covers
5570 on the sky, or 14 per cent of the total sky. We introduce a
method to compare the source catalogues that involves a pair match of sources,
a flux density cutoff to meet the survey completeness limit and a newly
developed compactness criterion. This method is used to identify both transient
candidates in the TGSS source catalogue that have no counterpart in the LoTSS
catalogue and transient candidates in LoTSS without a counterpart in TGSS. We
find that imaging artefacts and uncertainties and variations in the flux
density scales complicate the transient search. Our method to search for
transients by comparing two different surveys, while taking into account
imaging artefacts around bright sources and misaligned flux scales between
surveys, is universally applicable to future radio transient searches. No
transient sources were identified, but we are able to place an upper limit on
the transient surface density of at 150
MHz for compact sources with an integrated flux density over 100 mJy. Here we
define a transient as a compact source with flux density greater than 100 mJy
that appears in the catalogue of one survey without a counterpart in the other
survey.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure
The redshift evolution of extragalactic magnetic fields
Faraday rotation studies of distant radio sources can constrain the evolution
and the origin of cosmic magnetism. We use data from the LOFAR Two Metre Sky
Survey: Data Release 2 (LoTSS DR2) to study the dependence of the Faraday
rotation measure (RM) on redshift. By focusing on radio sources that are close
in terms of their projection on the sky, but physically unrelated (random
pairs), we measure the RM difference, RM, between the two sources.
Thus, we isolate the extragalactic contribution to RM from other
contributions. We present a statistical analysis of the resulting sample of
random pairs and find a median absolute RM difference |RM| rad/m , with |RM| uncorrelated both with respect to
the redshift difference of the pair and the redshift of the nearer source, and
a median excess of random pairs over physical pairs of
rad/m. We seek to reproduce this result with Monte Carlo simulations
assuming a non vanishing seed cosmological magnetic field and a redshift
evolution of the comoving magnetic field strength that varies as . We find the best fitting results nG and that we
conservatively quote as upper limits due to an unmodelled but non vanishing
contribution of local environments to the RM difference. A comparison with
cosmological simulations shows our results to be incompatible with primordial
magnetogenesis scenarios with uniform seed fields of order nG
No Massive Companion to the Coherent Radio-Emitting M Dwarf GJ 1151
The recent detection of circularly polarized, long-duration (>8 hr)
low-frequency (~150 MHz) radio emission from the M4.5 dwarf GJ 1151 has been
interpreted as arising from a star-planet interaction via the electron
cyclotron maser instability. The existence or parameters of the proposed
planets have not been determined. Using 20 new HARPS-N observations, we put
99th-percentile upper limits on the mass of any close companion to GJ 1151 at
Msini < 5.6 M earth. With no stellar, brown dwarf, or giant planet companion
likely in a close orbit, our data are consistent with detected radio emission
emerging from a magnetic interaction between a short-period terrestrial-mass
planet and GJ 1151
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