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Register a new userThe Intrinsic Far-UV Spectrum of B1422+231
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We present new spectroscopy of the z=3.62 gravitationally lensed quasar B1422+117 from the Gemini North GMOS integral field spectrograph. We observe significant differential magnifications between the broad emission lines and the continuum, as well as across the velocity structure of the Lyman-alpha line. We take advantage of this differential microlensing to algebraically decompose the quasar spectrum into the absorbed broad emission line and absorbed continuum components. We use the latter to derive the intrinsic Ly-alpha forest absorption spectrum. The proximity effect is clearly detected, with a proximity zone edge of 8.6-17.3 Mpc from the quasar, implying (perhaps intermittent) activity over at least 28 Myrs. The Ly-alpha line profile exhibits a blue excess that is inconsistent with a symmetric fit to the unabsorbed red side. This has important implications for the use of this fitting technique in estimating the absorbed blue Ly-alpha wings of Gunn-Peterson trough quasars.
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Matter flows in the central regions of quasars during their active phases are probably responsible for the properties of the super-massive black holes and that of the bulges of host galaxies. To understand how this mechanism works, we need to characterize the geometry and the physical state of the accreting matter at cosmological redshifts. The few high quality X-ray spectra of distant QSO have been collected by adding sparse pointings of single objects obtained during X-ray monitoring campaigns. This could have introduced spurious spectral features due to source variability. Here we present a single epoch, high-quality X-ray spectrum of the z=3.62 quasar B1422+231 whose flux is enhanced by gravitationally lensing (F$_{2-10 keV}sim$10$^{-12}$erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$). The X-ray spectrum of B1422+231 is found to be very similar to the one of a typical nearby Seyfert galaxy. Neutral absorption is detected (N$_{H}sim$5$times$10$^{21}$ cm$^{-2}$ at the redshift of the source) while a strong absorption edge is measured at E$sim$7.5 keV with an optical depth of $tausim$0.14. We also find hints of the FeK$alpha$ line in emission at E$sim$6.4 keV line (EW$lesssim$70 eV) and a hump is detected in the E$sim$15-20 keV energy band (rest-frame) suggesting the presence of a reflection component. In this scenario, the primary emission of B1422+231 is most probably dominated by the thermal Comptonization of UV seed photons in a corona with kT$sim$40 keV and the reflection component has a relative direct-to-reflect normalization r$sim$1. These findings confirm that gravitational lensing is effective to obtain good quality X-ray spectral information of quasar at high-z, moreover they support the idea that the same general picture characterizing active galactic nuclei in the nearby Universe is valid also at high redshift.
In this work we investigate the gravitationally lensed system B1422+231. High--quality VLBI image positions, fluxes and shapes as well as an optical HST lens galaxy position are used. First, two simple and smooth models for the lens galaxy are applied to fit observed image positions and fluxes; no even remotely acceptable model was found. Such models also do not accurately reproduce the image shapes. In order to fit the data successfully, mass substructure has to be added to the lens, and its level is estimated. To explore expectations about the level of substructure in galaxies and its influence on strong lensing, N-body simulation results of a model galaxy are employed. By using the mass distribution of this model galaxy as a lens, synthetic data sets of different four image system configurations are generated and simple lens models are again applied to fit them. The difficulties in fitting these lens systems turn out to be similar to the case of some real gravitationally lensed systems, thus possibly providing evidence for the presence and strong influence of substructure in the primary lens galaxy.
We present polarisation observations of the gravitational lens system B1422+231 made at 8.4 GHz using the VLBA and the 100m telescope at Effelsberg. All four images of the quasar show structure on the milliarcsec scale. The three bright images show tangential stretching as expected from lens models. Some basic properties of gravitational lensing are exhibited by this system. The surface brightness of images A and B are the same and the parity reversal expected in image B is revealed, for the first time, by polarisation observations. There is a large differential Faraday rotation between images A and B.
We present wide-field images of the quadruple gravitational lenses B1422+231 and MGJ0414+0534 obtained from global Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations at 8.4 GHz on 23 November 1997. We present also a lens model for MGJ0414+0534, which reproduces the core positions and flux densities of the VLBI images, combining a singular isothermal ellipsoid with external shear, and a singular isothermal sphere to represent, respectively, the main lens galaxy and its neighbor, a faint galaxy near one of the images.
The power mechanism and accretion geometry for low-power FR1 radio galaxies is poorly understood in comparison to Seyfert galaxies and QSOs. In this paper we use the diagnostic power of the Lya recombination line observed using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to investigate the accretion flows in three well-known, nearby FR1s: M87, NGC4696, and HydraA. The Ly$alpha$ emission lines luminosity, velocity structure and the limited knowledge of its spatial extent provided by COS are used to assess conditions within a few parsecs of the super-massive black hole (SMBH) in these radio-mode AGN. We observe strong Ly$alpha$ emission in all three objects with similar total luminosity to that seen in BL Lacertae objects. M87 shows a complicated emission line profile in Lya which varies spatially across the COS aperture and possibly temporally over several epochs of observation. In both NGC 4696 and M87, the Ly$alpha$ luminosities $sim 10^{40}$ ergs/s are closely consistent with the observed strength of the ionizing continuum in Case B recombination theory and with the assumption of near unity covering factor. It is possible that the Ly$alpha$ emitting clouds are ionized largely by beamed radiation associated with the jets. Long-slit UV spectroscopy can be used to test this hypothesis. Hydra A and the several BL Lac objects studied in this and previous papers have Lya luminosities larger than M87 but their extrapolated, non-thermal continua are so luminous that they over-predict the observed strength of Ly$alpha$, a clear indicator of relativistic beaming in our direction. Given their substantial space density ($sim 4times10^{-3} Mpc^{-3}$) the unbeamed Lyman continuum radiation of FR1s may make a substantial minority contribution (~10%) to the local UV background if all FR1s are similar to M87 in ionizing flux level.
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