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Description
When can an active galactic nucleus (AGN) be considered radio-loud? Following the established view of the AGNs inner workings, an AGN is radio-loud if associated with relativistic ejections emitting a radio synchrotron spectrum (i.e., it is a "jetted" AGN). In this paper we exploit the AGN main sequence that offers a powerful tool to contextualize radio properties. If large samples of optically-selected quasars are considered, AGNs are identified as radio-loud if their Kellermann's radio loudness ratio R_K_>10. Our aims are to characterize the optical properties of different classes based on radioloudness within the main sequence and to test whether the condition R_K_>10 is sufficient for the identification of RL AGNs, since the origin of relatively strong radio emission may not be necessarily due to relativistic ejection. A sample of 355 quasars was selected by cross-correlating the FIRST survey with the SDSS DR14 quasar catalog. We classified the optical spectra according to their spectral types along the main sequence of quasars. For each spectral type, we distinguished compact and extended morphology (providing a FIRST-based atlas of radio maps in the latter case), and three classes of radio-loudness: detected (specific flux ratio in the g band and at 1.4GHz, R_K'_<10), intermediate (10R_K'_<70), and radio loud (R_K'_>=70). The analysis revealed systematic differences between radio-detected (i.e., radio-quiet), radio-intermediate, and radio-loud in each spectral type along the main sequence. We show that spectral bins that contain the extreme Population A sources have radio power compatible with emission by mechanisms ultimately due to star formation processes. Radio-loud sources of Population B are characteristically jetted. Their broad H{beta} profiles can be interpreted as due to a binary broad-line region. We suggest that RL Population B sources should be preferential targets for the search of black hole binaries, and present a sample of binary black hole AGN candidates. The validity of the Kellermann's criterion may be dependent on the source location along the quasar main sequence. The consideration of the MS trends allowed to distinguish between sources whose radio emission mechanisms is "jetted" from the ones where the mechanism is likely to be fundamentally different.
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