No Arabic abstract
Context. NRAO 150 is one of the brightest radio and mm AGN sources on the northern sky. It has been revealed as an interesting source where to study extreme relativistic jet phenomena. However, its cosmological distance has not been reported so far, because of its optical faintness produced by strong Galactic extinction. Aims. Aiming at measuring the redshift of NRAO 150, and hence to start making possible quantitative studies from the source. Methods. We have conducted spectroscopic and photometric observations of the source in the near-IR, as well as in the optical. Results. All such observations have been successful in detecting the source. The near-IR spectroscopic observations reveal strong H$alpha$ and H$beta$ emission lines from which the cosmological redshift of NRAO 150 ($z=1.517pm0.002$) has been determined for the first time. We classify the source as a flat-spectrum radio-loud quasar, for which we estimate a large super-massive black-hole mass $sim5times 10^{9} mathrm{M_odot}$. After extinction correction, the new near-IR and optical data have revealed a high-luminosity continuum-emission excess in the optical (peaking at $sim2000$,AA, rest frame) that we attribute to thermal emission from the accretion disk for which we estimate a high accretion rate, $sim30$,% of the Eddington limit. Conclusions. Comparison of these source properties, and its broad-band spectral-energy distribution, with those of Fermi blazars allow us to predict that NRAO 150 is among the most powerful blazars, and hence a high luminosity -although not detected yet- $gamma$-ray emitter.
(Abridged) In a recent work we explored the dependence of galaxy stellar population properties derived from broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting on the fitting parameters, e.g. SFHs, age grid, metallicity, IMF, dust reddening, reddening law, filter setup and wavelength coverage. In this paper we consider also redshift as a free parameter in the fit and study whether one can obtain reasonable estimates of photometric redshifts and stellar population properties at once. We use mock star-forming as well as passive galaxies placed at various redshifts (0.5 to 3) as test particles. Mock star-forming galaxies are extracted from a semi-analytical galaxy formation model. We show that for high-z star-forming galaxies photometric redshifts, stellar masses and reddening can be determined simultaneously when using a broad wavelength coverage and a wide template setup in the fit. Masses are similarly well recovered (median ~ 0.2 dex) as at fixed redshift. For old galaxies with little recent star formation masses are better recovered than in the fixed redshift case, such that the median recovered stellar mass improves by up to 0.3 dex whereas the uncertainty in the redshift accuracy increases by only ~ 0.05. However, a failure in redshift recovery also means a failure in mass recovery. As at fixed redshift mismatches in SFH and degeneracies between age, dust and now also redshift cause underestimated ages, overestimated reddening and underestimated masses. Stellar masses are best determined at low redshift without reddening in the fit (median underestimation ~ 0.1 dex for similarly well recovered redshifts). Not surprisingly, the recovery of properties is substantially better for passive galaxies. In all cases, the recovery of physical parameters is crucially dependent on the wavelength coverage adopted in the fitting. Scaling relations for the transformation of stellar masses are provided.
The Crab nebula is a supernova remnant exhibiting a highly polarized synchrotron radiation at radio and millimeter wavelengths. It is the brightest source in the microwave sky with an extension of 7 by 5 arcminutes and commonly used as a standard candle for any experiment which aims at measuring the polarization of the sky. Though its spectral energy distribution has been well characterized in total intensity, polarization data are still lacking at millimetre wavelengths. We report in this paper high resolution (18 arcsec FWHM) observations of the Crab nebula in total intensity and linear polarization at 150 GHz with the NIKA camera. NIKA, operated at the IRAM 30 m telescope from 2012 to 2015, is a camera made of Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors (LEKIDs) observing the sky at 150 and 260 GHz. From these observations we are able to reconstruct the spatial distribution of the polarization degree and angle of the Crab nebula, which is found to be compatible with previous observations at lower and higher frequencies. Averaging across the source and using other existing data sets we find that the Crab nebula polarization angle is consistent with being constant over a wide range of frequencies with a value of -87.7$^circ$ +- 0.3 in Galactic coordinates. We also present the first estimation of the Crab nebula spectral energy distribution polarized flux in a wide frequency range: 30-353 GHz. Assuming a single power law emission model we find that the polarization spectral index $beta_{pol}$ = - 0.347 +- 0.026 is compatible with the intensity spectral index $beta$ = - 0.323 +- 0.001.
The acceleration and radiative processes active in low-power radio hotspots are investigated by means of new deep near-infrared (NIR) and optical VLT observations, complemented with archival, high-sensitivity VLT, radio VLA and X-ray Chandra data. For the three studied radio galaxies (3C 105, 3C 195 and 3C 227), we confirm the detection of NIR/optical counterparts of the observed radio hotspots. We resolve multiple components in 3C 227 West and in 3C 105 South and characterize the diffuse NIR/optical emission of the latter. We show that the linear size of this component ($gtrsim$4 kpc) makes 3C 105 South a compelling case for particles re-acceleration in the post-shock region. Modeling of the radio-to-X-ray spectral energy distribution (SED) of 3C 195 South and 3C 227 W1 gives clues on the origin of the detected X-ray emission. In the context of inverse Compton models, the peculiarly steep synchrotron curve of 3C 195 South sets constraints on the shape of the radiating particles spectrum that are testable with better knowledge of the SED shape at low ($lesssim$GHz) radio frequencies and in X-rays. The X-ray emission of 3C 227 W1 can be explained with an additional synchrotron component originating in compact ($<$100 pc) regions, such those revealed by radio observations at 22 GHz, provided that efficient particle acceleration ($gammagtrsim$10$^7$) is ongoing. The emerging picture is that of systems in which different acceleration and radiative processes coexist.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) discovered a few unusual quasars with a characteristic break in the continuum around 3000 A that neither shows the typical structure of broad absorption line (BAL) troughs nor is explained by typical intrinsic dust reddening. We used the method of Kohonen self-organising maps for a systematical search for quasars with such properties in the SDSS spectra archive. We constructed a sample of 23 quasars classified as 3000 A break quasars and two comparison samples of quasars with similar properties, to some extent, but also showing typical BAL features. We computed ensemble-averaged broad-band SEDs based on archival data from SDSS, GALEX, 2MASS, UKIDSS, and WISE. The SEDs were corrected for intrinsic dust absorption by the comparison with the average SED of normal quasars. The de-reddened arithmetic median composite SED of the 3000 A break quasars is found to be indistinguishable from that of the unusual BAL quasars. We conclude that 3000 A break quasars are most likely extre
(Abridged) We attempt to infer the accretion mechanism and radiative processes giving rise to the SEDs of a well-defined optically-selected sample of LINERs showing a definite detection of broad Halpha emission (LINER 1s). We construct SEDs for six LINER~1s with simultaneous UV and X-ray fluxes, and we looked for multiwavelength, radio to X-ray and UV to X-ray, correlations. At a given X-ray luminosity, the average SED of the six LINER 1s in our sample: (1) resembles the SED of radio-loud quasars in the radio band, <log R_X>~-2.7, (2) exhibits a weak UV bump, <alpha_ox>~-1.17+-0.02 with a dispersion sigma=0.01, and (3) displays a X-ray spectrum similar to radio-quiet quasars. The bolometric luminosities inferred from the SEDs are extremely faint, at least two orders of magnitude lower than AGN. The X-ray bolometric correction, kappa_(2-10 keV), of our sample is lower than in the case of AGN, with a mean value of 16. We find a strong anticorrelation between the radio loudness parameter, R_X, and the Eddington ratio for our sample, confirming previous results. Moreover, we find a positive correlation between the radio luminosity and the X-ray luminosity which places AGN-powered LINERs, on a radio-power scale, right between low luminosity Seyferts and low luminosity radio galaxies. We complement our alpha_ox list with values derived on a well defined sample of UV-variable LINERs, and establish a strong positive correlation between alpha_ox (considering negative values) and the Eddington ratio, in contrast to the correlation found for luminous AGN. Lastly, we tested two different fundamental planes existing in the literature on our sample, in an attempt to put constraints on the debated origin of the X-ray emission, RIAF versus jet. The results came contradictory with one pointing toward a RIAF-dominated X-ray emission process and the other pointing toward a jet domination.