ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Why Do Compact Active Galactic Nuclei at High Redshift Scintillate Less?

148   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Jun Yi Koay
 تاريخ النشر 2012
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

The fraction of compact active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that exhibit interstellar scintillation (ISS) at radio wavelengths, as well as their scintillation amplitudes, have been found to decrease significantly for sources at redshifts z > 2. This can be attributed to an increase in the angular sizes of the muas-scale cores or a decrease in the flux densities of the compact muas cores relative to that of the mas-scale components with increasing redshift, possibly arising from (1) the space-time curvature of an expanding Universe, (2) AGN evolution, (3) source selection biases, (4) scatter broadening in the ionized intergalactic medium (IGM) and intervening galaxies, or (5) gravitational lensing. We examine the frequency scaling of this redshift dependence of ISS to determine its origin, using data from a dual-frequency survey of ISS of 128 sources at 0 < z < 4. We present a novel method of analysis which accounts for selection effects in the source sample. We determine that the redshift dependence of ISS is partially linked to the steepening of source spectral indices ({alpha}^8.4_4.9) with redshift, caused either by selection biases or AGN evolution, coupled with weaker ISS in the {alpha}^8.4_4.9 < -0.4 sources. Selecting only the -0.4 < {alpha}^8.4_4.9 < 0.4 sources, we find that the redshift dependence of ISS is still significant, but is not significantly steeper than the expected (1+z)^0.5 scaling of source angular sizes due to cosmological expansion for a brightness temperature and flux-limited sample of sources. We find no significant evidence for scatter broadening in the IGM, ruling it out as the main cause of the redshift dependence of ISS. We obtain an upper limit to IGM scatter broadening of < 110muas at 4.9 GHz with 99% confidence for all lines of sight, and as low as < 8muas for sight-lines to the most compact, sim 10muas sources.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

Motivated by the claimed detection of a large population of faint active galactic nuclei (AGN) at high redshift, recent studies have proposed models in which AGN contribute significantly to the z > 4 H I ionizing background. In some models, AGN are e ven the chief sources of reionization. If correct, these models would make necessary a complete revision to the standard view that galaxies dominated the high-redshift ionizing background. It has been suggested that AGN-dominated models can better account for two recent observations that appear to be in conflict with the standard view: (1) large opacity variations in the z ~ 5.5 H I Lyman-alpha forest, and (2) slow evolution in the mean opacity of the He II Lyman-alpha forest. Large spatial fluctuations in the ionizing background from the brightness and rarity of AGN may account for the former, while the earlier onset of He II reionization in these models may account for the latter. Here we show that models in which AGN emissions source >~ 50 % of the ionizing background generally provide a better fit to the observed H I Lyman-alpha forest opacity variations compared to standard galaxy-dominated models. However, we argue that these AGN-dominated models are in tension with constraints on the thermal history of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Under standard assumptions about the spectra of AGN, we show that the earlier onset of He II reionization heats up the IGM well above recent temperature measurements. We further argue that the slower evolution of the mean opacity of the He II Lyman-alpha forest relative to simulations may reflect deficiencies in current simulations rather than favor AGN-dominated models as has been suggested.
We characterize the incidence of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is 0.3 < z < 1 star-forming galaxies by applying multi-wavelength AGN diagnostics (X-ray, optical, mid-infrared, radio) to a sample of galaxies selected at 70-micron from the Far-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy survey (FIDEL). Given the depth of FIDEL, we detect normal galaxies on the specific star formation rate (sSFR) sequence as well as starbursting systems with elevated sSFR. We find an overall high occurrence of AGN of 37+/-3%, more than twice as high as in previous studies of galaxies with comparable infrared luminosities and redshifts but in good agreement with the AGN fraction of nearby (0.05 < z < 0.1) galaxies of similar infrared luminosities. The more complete census of AGNs comes from using the recently developed Mass-Excitation (MEx) diagnostic diagram. This optical diagnostic is also sensitive to X-ray weak AGNs and X-ray absorbed AGNs, and reveals that absorbed active nuclei reside almost exclusively in infrared-luminous hosts. The fraction of galaxies hosting an AGN appears to be independent of sSFR and remains elevated both on the sSFR sequence and above. In contrast, the fraction of AGNs that are X-ray absorbed increases substantially with increasing sSFR, possibly due to an increased gas fraction and/or gas density in the host galaxies.
72 - Claudia Mancuso 2016
We provide a novel, unifying physical interpretation on the origin, the average shape, the scatter, and the cosmic evolution for the main sequences of starforming galaxies and active galactic nuclei at high redshift z $gtrsim$ 1. We achieve this goal in a model-independent way by exploiting: (i) the redshift-dependent SFR functions based on the latest UV/far-IR data from HST/Herschel, and re- lated statistics of strong gravitationally lensed sources; (ii) deterministic evolutionary tracks for the history of star formation and black hole accretion, gauged on a wealth of multiwavelength observations including the observed Eddington ratio distribution. We further validate these ingredients by showing their consistency with the observed galaxy stellar mass functions and AGN bolometric luminosity functions at different redshifts via the continuity equation approach. Our analysis of the main sequence for high-redshift galaxies and AGNs highlights that the present data are consistently interpreted in terms of an in situ coevolution scenario for star formation and black hole accretion, envisaging these as local, time coordinated processes.
We introduce the Mass-Excitation (MEx) diagnostic to identify active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies at intermediate redshift. In the absence of near-infrared spectroscopy, necessary to use traditional nebular line diagrams at z>0.4, we demonstrate that combining [OIII]5007/Hbeta and stellar mass successfully distinguishes between star formation and AGN emission. The MEx classification scheme relies on a novel probabilistic approach splitting galaxies into sub-categories with more confidence than alternative high-z diagnostic diagrams. It recognizes that galaxies near empirical boundaries on traditional diagrams have an uncertain classification and thus a non-zero probability of belonging to more than one category. An outcome of this work is a system of statistical weights that can be used to compute global properties of galaxy samples. We apply the MEx diagram to 2,812 galaxies at 0.3<z<1 in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey North and Extended Groth Strip fields, and compare it to an independent X-ray classification scheme. We identify Compton-thick AGN candidates with large X-ray absorption, which we infer from the luminosity ratio between hard X-ray emission and [OIII]5007, a nearly isotropic tracer of AGN. X-ray stacking of sources that were not detected individually supports the validity of the MEx diagram and yields a very flat spectral slope for the Compton-thick candidates (Gamma~0.4, unambiguously indicating absorbed AGN). We present evidence that composite galaxies, which are difficult to identify with alternative high-redshift diagrams, host the majority of the highly-absorbed AGN. Our findings suggest that the interstellar medium of the host galaxy provides significant absorption in addition to the torus invoked in AGN unified models.
We study the comoving space density of X-ray-selected luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and the obscured AGN fraction at high redshifts ($3 < z < 5$) in the Subaru/{it XMM-Newton} Deep Survey (SXDS) field. From an X-ray source catalog with high completeness of optical identification thanks to deep optical images, we select a sample of 30 AGNs at $z > 3$ with intrinsic (de-absorbed and rest-frame 2--10 keV) luminosities of $L_{rm X} = 10^{44-45}$ erg s$^{-1}$ detected in the 0.5--2 keV band, consisting of 20 and 10 objects with spectroscopic and photometric redshifts, respectively. Utilizing the $1/V_{rm max}$ method, we confirm that the comoving space density of luminous AGNs decreases with redshift above $z > 3$. When combined with the {it Chandra}-COSMOS result of Civano et al. (2011), the density decline of AGNs with $L_{rm X} = 10^{44-45}$ erg s$^{-1}$ is well represented by a power law of $(1 + z)^{-6.2 pm 0.9}$. We also determine the fraction of X-ray obscured AGNs with $N_{rm H} > 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$ in the Compton-thin population to be 0.54$^{+0.17}_{-0.19}$, by carefully taking into account observational biases including the effects of photon statistics for each source. This result is consistent with an independent determination of the type-2 AGN fraction based on optical properties, for which the fraction is found to be 0.59$pm$0.09. Comparing our result with that obtained in the local Universe, we conclude that the obscured fraction of luminous AGNs increases significantly from $z=0$ to $z>3$ by a factor of 2.5$pm$1.1.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا