Set 4: Active Galaxies
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A Rapidly Spinning Black Hole Powers the Einstein Cross
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 792:L19 (5pp), 2014 September 1 doi:10.1088/2041-8205/792/1/L19 C 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. A RAPIDLY SPINNING BLACK HOLE POWERS THE EINSTEIN CROSS Mark T. Reynolds1, Dominic J. Walton2, Jon M. Miller1, and Rubens C. Reis1 1 Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 311 West Hall, 1085 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; [email protected] 2 Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA Received 2014 July 22; accepted 2014 August 7; published 2014 August 20 ABSTRACT Observations over the past 20 yr have revealed a strong relationship between the properties of the supermassive black hole lying at the center of a galaxy and the host galaxy itself. The magnitude of the spin of the black hole will play a key role in determining the nature of this relationship. To date, direct estimates of black hole spin have been restricted to the local universe. Herein, we present the results of an analysis of ∼0.5 Ms of archival Chandra observations of the gravitationally lensed quasar Q 2237+305 (aka the “Einstein-cross”), lying at a redshift of z = 1.695. The boost in flux provided by the gravitational lens allows constraints to be placed on the spin of a black hole at such high redshift for the first time. Utilizing state of the art relativistic disk reflection models, the black = +0.06 hole is found to have a spin of a∗ 0.74−0.03 at the 90% confidence level. -
Constellation Queries Over Big Data
Constellation Queries over Big Data Fabio Porto Amir Khatibi Joao Guilherme Nobre LNCC UFMG LNCC DEXL Lab Brazil DEXL Lab Petropolis, Brazil [email protected] Petropolis, Brazil [email protected] [email protected] Eduardo Ogasawara Patrick Valduriez Dennis Shasha CEFET-RJ INRIA New York University Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Montpellier, France New York, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT The availability of large datasets in science, web and mobile A geometrical pattern is a set of points with all pairwise dis- applications enables new interpretations of natural phenom- tances (or, more generally, relative distances) specified. Find- ena and human behavior. ing matches to such patterns has applications to spatial data in Consider the following two use cases: seismic, astronomical, and transportation contexts. For exam- Scenario 1. An astronomy catalog is a table holding bil- ple, a particularly interesting geometric pattern in astronomy lions of sky objects from a region of the sky, captured by tele- is the Einstein cross, which is an astronomical phenomenon scopes. An astronomer may be interested in identifying the in which a single quasar is observed as four distinct sky ob- effects of gravitational lensing in quasars, as predicted by Ein- jects (due to gravitational lensing) when captured by earth stein’s General Theory of Relativity [2]. According to this the- telescopes. Finding such crosses, as well as other geometric ory, massive objects like galaxies bend light rays that travel patterns, is a challenging problem as the potential number of near them just as a glass lens does. -
Resolving the Radio Loud/Radio Quiet Dichotomy Without Thick Disks David
Resolving the radio loud/radio quiet dichotomy without thick disks David Garofalo Department of Physics, Kennesaw State University, Marietta GA 30060, USA Abstract Observations of radio loud active galaxies in the XMM-Newton archive by Mehdipour & Costantini show a strong anti-correlation between the column density of the ionized wind and the radio loudness parameter, providing evidence that jets may thrive in thin disks. This is in contrast with decades of analytic and numerical work suggesting jet formation is contingent on the presence of an inner, geometrically thick disk structure, which serves to both collimate and accelerate the jet. Thick disks emerge in radiatively inefficient disks which are associated with sub-Eddington as well as super-Eddington accretion regimes yet we show that the inverse correlation between winds and jets survives where it should not, namely in a luminosity regime normally attributed to radio quiet active galaxies which are modeled with thin disks. This along with other lines of evidence argues against thick disks as the foundation behind the radio loud/radio quiet dichotomy, opening up the possibility that jetted versus non jetted black holes may be understood within the context of radiatively efficient thin disk accretion. 1. Introduction Sikora et al (2007) explored the inverse correlation between radio loudness and Eddington accretion rate for a large sample of active galaxies (AGN) including Seyfert galaxies and LINERs, optically selected quasars, FRI radio galaxies, FRII quasars, and broad line radio galaxies. Despite a clear dichotomy in radio loudness between objects referred to as radio loud and those as radio quiet, the data was insufficiently detailed to shed light on the jet-disk connection near the Eddington limit where we traditionally model the radio quiet subset of the AGN family. -
Powerful Jets from Radiatively Efficient Disks, a Decades-Old Unresolved Problem in High Energy Astrophysics
galaxies Article Powerful Jets from Radiatively Efficient Disks, a Decades-Old Unresolved Problem in High Energy Astrophysics Chandra B. Singh 1,*,†, David Garofalo 2,† and Benjamin Lang 3 1 South-Western Institute for Astronomy Research, Yunnan University, University Town, Chenggong, Kunming 650500, China 2 Department of Physics, Kennesaw State University, Marietta, GA 30060, USA; [email protected] 3 Department of Physics & Astronomy, California State University, Northridge, CA 91330, USA; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: The discovery of 3C 273 in 1963, and the emergence of the Kerr solution shortly thereafter, precipitated the current era in astrophysics focused on using black holes to explain active galactic nuclei (AGN). But while partial success was achieved in separately explaining the bright nuclei of some AGN via thin disks, as well as powerful jets with thick disks, the combination of both powerful jets in an AGN with a bright nucleus, such as in 3C 273, remained elusive. Although numerical simulations have taken center stage in the last 25 years, they have struggled to produce the conditions that explain them. This is because radiatively efficient disks have proved a challenge to simulate. Radio quasars have thus been the least understood objects in high energy astrophysics. But recent simulations have begun to change this. We explore this milestone in light of scale-invariance and show that transitory jets, possibly related to the jets seen in these recent simulations, as some have proposed, cannot explain radio quasars. We then provide a road map for a resolution. -
The Milky Way Tomography with SDSS I. Stellar Number Density
The Astrophysical Journal, 673:864Y914, 2008 February 1 A # 2008. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. THE MILKY WAY TOMOGRAPHY WITH SDSS. I. STELLAR NUMBER DENSITY DISTRIBUTION Mario Juric´,1,2 Zˇ eljko Ivezic´,3 Alyson Brooks,3 Robert H. Lupton,1 David Schlegel,1,4 Douglas Finkbeiner,1,5 Nikhil Padmanabhan,4,6 Nicholas Bond,1 Branimir Sesar,3 Constance M. Rockosi,3,7 Gillian R. Knapp,1 James E. Gunn,1 Takahiro Sumi,1,8 Donald P. Schneider,9 J. C. Barentine,10 Howard J. Brewington,10 J. Brinkmann,10 Masataka Fukugita,11 Michael Harvanek,10 S. J. Kleinman,10 Jurek Krzesinski,10,12 Dan Long,10 Eric H. Neilsen, Jr.,13 Atsuko Nitta,10 Stephanie A. Snedden,10 and Donald G. York14 Received 2005 October 21; accepted 2007 September 6 ABSTRACT Using the photometric parallax method we estimate the distances to 48 million stars detected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and map their three-dimensional number density distribution in the Galaxy. The currently avail- able data sample the distance range from 100 pc to 20 kpc and cover 6500 deg2 of sky, mostly at high Galactic lati- tudes (jbj > 25). These stellar number density maps allow an investigation of the Galactic structure with no a priori assumptions about the functional form of its components. The data show strong evidence for a Galaxy consisting of an oblate halo, a disk component, and a number of localized overdensities. The number density distribution of stars as traced by M dwarfs in the solar neighborhood (D < 2 kpc) is well fit by two exponential disks (the thin and thick disk) with scale heights and lengths, bias corrected for an assumed 35% binary fraction, of H1 ¼ 300 pc and L1 ¼ 2600 pc, and H2 ¼ 900 pc and L2 ¼ 3600 pc, and local thick-to-thin disk density normalization thick(R )/thin(R ) ¼ 12%. -
12 Strong Gravitational Lenses
12 Strong Gravitational Lenses Phil Marshall, MaruˇsaBradaˇc,George Chartas, Gregory Dobler, Ard´ısEl´ıasd´ottir,´ Emilio Falco, Chris Fassnacht, James Jee, Charles Keeton, Masamune Oguri, Anthony Tyson LSST will contain more strong gravitational lensing events than any other survey preceding it, and will monitor them all at a cadence of a few days to a few weeks. Concurrent space-based optical or perhaps ground-based surveys may provide higher resolution imaging: the biggest advances in strong lensing science made with LSST will be in those areas that benefit most from the large volume and the high accuracy, multi-filter time series. In this chapter we propose an array of science projects that fit this bill. We first provide a brief introduction to the basic physics of gravitational lensing, focusing on the formation of multiple images: the strong lensing regime. Further description of lensing phenomena will be provided as they arise throughout the chapter. We then make some predictions for the properties of samples of lenses of various kinds we can expect to discover with LSST: their numbers and distributions in redshift, image separation, and so on. This is important, since the principal step forward provided by LSST will be one of lens sample size, and the extent to which new lensing science projects will be enabled depends very much on the samples generated. From § 12.3 onwards we introduce the proposed LSST science projects. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but should serve as a good starting point for investigators looking to exploit the strong lensing phenomenon with LSST. -
The Age of the Galaxy's Thick Disk
The Ages of Stars Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 258, 2008 c 2009 International Astronomical Union E.E. Mamajek, D.R. Soderblom & R.F.G. Wyse, eds. doi:10.1017/S1743921309031676 The age of the Galaxy’s thick disk Sofia Feltzing1† and Thomas Bensby2 1 Lund Observatory, Box 43, SE-22100, Lund, Sweden email: [email protected] 2 European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Vitacura, Casilla 19001, Santiago, Chile email: [email protected] Abstract. We discuss the age of the stellar disks in the solar neighborhood. After reviewing the various methods for age dating, we discuss current estimates of the ages of both the thin- and the thick disks. We present preliminary results for kinematically-selected stars that belong to the thin- as well as the thick disk. All of these dwarf and sub-giant stars have been studied spectroscopically and we have derived both elemental abundances as well as ages for them. A general conclusion is that in the solar neighborhood, on average, the thick disk is older than the thin disk. However, we caution that the exclusion of stars with effective temperatures around 6500 K might result in a biased view of the full age distribution for the stars in the thick disk. Keywords. Galaxy: structure, Galaxy: disk, kinematics and dynamics, solar neighborhood, Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, stars: late-type 1. Introduction The age of a stellar population can be determined in several ways. For groups of stars, isochrones may be fitted to the stellar sequence in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD; see, e.g., Schuster et al. -
Multiple Images of a Highly Magnified Supernova Formed
Multiple Images of a Highly Magnified Supernova Formed by an Early-Type Cluster Galaxy Lens Patrick L. Kelly1∗, Steven A. Rodney2, Tommaso Treu3, Ryan J. Foley4, Gabriel Brammer5, Kasper B. Schmidt6, Adi Zitrin7, Alessandro Sonnenfeld3, Louis-Gregory Strolger5,8, Or Graur9, Alexei V. Filippenko1, Saurabh W. Jha10, Adam G. Riess2,5, Marusa Bradac11, Benjamin J. Weiner12, Daniel Scolnic2, Matthew A. Malkan3, Anja von der Linden13, Michele Trenti14, Jens Hjorth13, Raphael Gavazzi15, Adriano Fontana16, Julian Merten7, Curtis McCully6, Tucker Jones6, Marc Postman5, Alan Dressler17, Brandon Patel10, S. Bradley Cenko18, Melissa L. Graham1, and Bradley E. Tucker1 1Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 2Department of Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 4University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801 5Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 6Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 7California Institute of Technology, MC 249-17, Pasadena, CA 91125 8Western Kentucky University, 1906 College Heights Blvd., Bowling Green, KY 42101 9CCPP, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 10Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854 11Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 12Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 arXiv:1411.6009v1 [astro-ph.CO] 21 Nov 2014 13Dark Cosmology Centre, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen, Demark 14School of Physics, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia 15Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, 98 bis Boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France 16INAF-OAR, Via Frascati 33, 00040 Monte Porzio - Rome, Italy 17Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 18NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 662, Greenbelt, MD 20771 ∗To whom correspondence should be addressed; E-mail: [email protected]. -
The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic & Integrated Properties
The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic & Integrated Properties Joss Bland-Hawthorn1, Ortwin Gerhard2 1Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics A28, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; email: [email protected] 2Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics, PO Box 1312, Giessenbachstr., 85741 Garching, Germany; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 2016. Keywords 54:529{596 Galaxy: Structural Components, Stellar Kinematics, Stellar This article's doi: 10.1146/annurev-astro-081915-023441 Populations, Dynamics, Evolution; Local Group; Cosmology Copyright c 2016 by Annual Reviews. Abstract All rights reserved Our Galaxy, the Milky Way, is a benchmark for understanding disk galaxies. It is the only galaxy whose formation history can be stud- ied using the full distribution of stars from faint dwarfs to supergiants. The oldest components provide us with unique insight into how galaxies form and evolve over billions of years. The Galaxy is a luminous (L?) barred spiral with a central box/peanut bulge, a dominant disk, and a diffuse stellar halo. Based on global properties, it falls in the sparsely populated \green valley" region of the galaxy colour-magnitude dia- arXiv:1602.07702v2 [astro-ph.GA] 5 Jan 2017 gram. Here we review the key integrated, structural and kinematic pa- rameters of the Galaxy, and point to uncertainties as well as directions for future progress. Galactic studies will continue to play a fundamen- tal role far into the future because there are measurements that can only be made in the near field and much of contemporary astrophysics depends on such observations. 529 Redshift (z) 20 10 5 2 1 0 1012 1011 ) ¯ 1010 M ( 9 r i 10 v 8 M 10 107 100 101 102 ) c p 1 k 10 ( r i v r 100 10-1 0.3 1 3 10 Time (Gyr) Figure 1 Left: The estimated growth of the Galaxy's virial mass (Mvir) and radius (rvir) from z = 20 to the present day, z = 0. -
The Galactic Thick Disk: an Observational Perspective
Chemical Abundances in the Universe: Connecting First Stars to Planets Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 265, 2009 c International Astronomical Union 2010 K. Cunha, M. Spite & B. Barbuy, eds. doi:10.1017/S1743921310000761 The Galactic Thick Disk: An Observational Perspective Bacham E. Reddy Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, 560034, email: [email protected] Abstract. In this review, we present a brief description of observational efforts to understand the Galactic thick disk and its relation to the other Galactic components. This review primarily focused on elemental abundance patterns of the thick disk population to understand the pro- cess or processes that were responsible for its existence and evolution. Kinematic and chemical properties of disk stars establish that the thick disk is a distinct component in the Milky Way, and its chemical enrichment and star formation histories hold clues to the bigger picture of understanding the Galaxy formation. Keywords. stars: FGK dwarfs, Stars: abundances, Stars: Kinematics, Galaxy: disk 1. Introduction Deciphering the history of the birth and the growth of the Milky Way Galaxy is one of the major outstanding astrophysical problems. Detailed studies of our Galaxy would help to gain insights into the formation and evolution of other galaxies, and thereby large scale structure formation in the universe. As inhabitants, we have much better access to our Galaxy to resolve its building blocks: the stars. The properties of stars that constitute the Galaxy are clues to the processes involved in the making of the Milky Way Galaxy we see today. The observational data on stellar motions and photospheric abundances played decisive roles in the progression of our understanding of the Galaxy. -
UC Davis UC Davis Previously Published Works
UC Davis UC Davis Previously Published Works Title Multiple images of a highly magnified supernova formed by an early-type cluster galaxy lens Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3d5712fq Journal Science, 347(6226) ISSN 0036-8075 Authors Kelly, PL Rodney, SA Treu, T et al. Publication Date 2015-03-06 DOI 10.1126/science.aaa3350 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Multiple Images of a Highly Magnified Supernova Formed by an Early-Type Cluster Galaxy Lens∗ Patrick L. Kelly1∗, Steven A. Rodney2, Tommaso Treu3, Ryan J. Foley4, Gabriel Brammer5, Kasper B. Schmidt6, Adi Zitrin7, Alessandro Sonnenfeld3, Louis-Gregory Strolger5,8, Or Graur9, Alexei V. Filippenko1, Saurabh W. Jha10, Adam G. Riess2,5, Marusa Bradac11, Benjamin J. Weiner12, Daniel Scolnic2, Matthew A. Malkan3, Anja von der Linden13, Michele Trenti14, Jens Hjorth13, Raphael Gavazzi15, Adriano Fontana16, Julian Merten7, Curtis McCully6, Tucker Jones6, Marc Postman5, Alan Dressler17, Brandon Patel10, S. Bradley Cenko18, Melissa L. Graham1, and Bradley E. Tucker1 1Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 2Department of Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 4University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801 5Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 6Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA -
An X-Ray Study of Gravitational Lenses
The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics AN X-RAY STUDY OF GRAVITATIONAL LENSES A Thesis in Astronomy and Astrophysics by Xinyu Dai c 2004 Xinyu Dai Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2004 The thesis of Xinyu Dai was reviewed and approved* by the following: Gordon P. Garmire Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Thesis Co-Adviser Co-Chair of Committee George Chartas Sr. Research Associate of Astronomy and Astrophysics Thesis Co-Adviser Co-Chair of Committee Michael Eracleous Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Robin Ciardullo Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics L. Samuel Finn Professor of Physics Lawrence W. Ramsey Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii Abstract Gravitational lensing of distant quasars by intervening galaxies is a spectacular phenomenon in the universe. With the advent of Chandra, it is possible to resolve for the first time in the X-ray band lensed quasar images with separations greater than about 0.35 arcsec. We use lensing as a tool to study AGN and Cosmology with Chandra and XMM-Newton. First, we present results from a mini-survey of relatively high redshift (1:7 < z < 4) gravitationally lensed radio-quiet quasars observed with the Chandra X-ray Observa- tory and with XMM-Newton. The lensing magnification effect allows us to search for changes in quasar spectroscopic and flux variability properties with redshift over three orders of magnitude in intrinsic X-ray luminosity.