We report the optical identification of the companion to the {it Fermi} black widow millisecond pulsar PSR J1544+4937. We find a highly variable source on Keck LRIS images at the nominal pulsar position, with 2 magnitude variations over orbital perio
d in the B, g, R, and I bands. The nearly achromatic light curves are difficult to explain with a simply irradiated hemisphere model, and suggest that the optical emission is dominated by a nearly isothermal hot patch on the surface of the companion facing the pulsar. We roughly constrain the distance to PSR J1544+4937 to be between 2 and 5 kpc. A more reliable distance measurement is needed in order to constrain the composition of the companion.
The large-scale surveys such as PTF, CRTS and Pan-STARRS-1 that have emerged within the past 5 years or so employ digital databases and modern analysis tools to accentuate research into Time Domain Astronomy (TDA). Preparations are underway for LSST
which, in another 6 years, will usher in the second decade of modern TDA. By that time the Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard (DASCH) project will have made available to the community the full sky Historical TDA database and digitized images for a century (1890--1990) of coverage. We describe the current DASCH development and some initial results, and outline plans for the production scanning phase and data distribution which is to begin in 2012. That will open a 100-year window into temporal astrophysics, revealing rare transients and (especially) astrophysical phenomena that vary on time-scales of a decade. It will also provide context and archival comparisons for the deeper modern surveys
A two-components model for Broad Line Region (BLR) of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) has been suggested for many years but not widely accepted (e.g., Hu et al. 2008; Sulentic et al. 2000; Brotherton et al. 1996; Mason et al. 1996). This model indicates
that the broad line can be described with superposition of two Gaussian components (Very Broad Gaussian Component (VBGC) and InterMediate Gaussian Component (IMGC)) which are from two physically distinct regions; i.e., Very Broad Line Region (VBLR) and InterMediate Line Region (IMLR). We select a SDSS sample to further confirm this model and give detailed analysis to the geometry, density and evolution of these two regions. Micro-lensing result of BLR in J1131-1231 and some unexplained phenomena in Reverberation Mapping (RM) experiment provide supportive evidence for this model. Our results indicate that the radius obtained from the emission line RM normally corresponds to the radius of the VBLR, and the existence of the IMGC may affect the measurement of the black hole masses in AGNs. The deviation of NLS1s from the M-sigma relation and the Type II AGN fraction as a function of luminosity can be explained in this model in a coherent way. The evolution of the two emission regions may be related to the evolutionary stages of the broad line regions of AGNs from NLS1s to BLS1s. Based on the results presented here, a unified picture of hierarchical evolution of black hole, dust torus and galaxy is proposed.
In the unusual intrinsic QSO redshift models, QSOs are ejected by active galaxies with periodic non-cosmological reshifts, thus QSOs are generally associated with active galaxies, and certain structures will be revealed in the QSO redshift distributi
on. As the largest homogeneous sample of QSOs and galaxies, SDSS data provide the best opportunity to examine this issue. We review the debates on this issue, focused on those based on SDSS and 2dF data, and conclude that there is no strong connection between foreground active galaxies and high-redshift QSOs. The existence of two dips in the SDSS QSO redshift distribution at z=2.7 and 3.5 has recently re-ignited those controversial debates on the origin of QSO redshift. It also turned out that both dips are totally caused by selection effects and after selection effects have been corrected, the two dips disappear and no structure in the redshift distribution of SDSS DR5 sample. These results support that the reshifts of QSOs are cosmological.
