- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/757/51
- Title:
- FIRST-2MASS dust-reddened QSO spectra
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/757/51
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a sample of 120 dust-reddened quasars identified by matching radio sources detected at 1.4GHz in the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters survey (FIRST) with the near-infrared Two Micron All Sky Survey catalog (2MASS) and color-selecting red sources. Optical and/or near-infrared spectroscopy provide broad wavelength sampling of their spectral energy distributions that we use to determine their reddening, characterized by E(B-V). We demonstrate that the reddening in these quasars is best described by Small-Magellanic-Cloud-like dust. This sample spans a wide range in redshift and reddening (0.1<~z<~3, 0.1<~E(B-V)<~1.5), which we use to investigate the possible correlation of luminosity with reddening. At every redshift, dust-reddened quasars are intrinsically the most luminous quasars. We interpret this result in the context of merger-driven quasar/galaxy co-evolution where these reddened quasars are revealing an emergent phase during which the heavily obscured quasar is shedding its cocoon of dust prior to becoming a "normal" blue quasar. When correcting for extinction, we find that, depending on how the parent population is defined, these red quasars make up <~15%-20% of the luminous quasar population. We estimate, based on the fraction of objects in this phase, that its duration is 15%-20% as long as the unobscured, blue quasar phase.
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Search Results
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/607/60
- Title:
- FIRST-2MASS faint sources
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/607/60
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We have constructed a sample of bright near-infrared sources that are detected at radio wavelengths but undetected on the first-generation Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSSI) plates in order to search for a population of dust-obscured quasars. Optical and infrared spectroscopic follow-up of the sample has led to the discovery of 17 heavily reddened quasars (B-K>6.5), 14 of which are reported here for the first time. This has allowed us to define a region in the R-K, J-K color plane in which 50% of the radio-selected objects are highly reddened quasars. We compare the surface density of this previously overlooked population to that of ultraviolet-excess radio-selected quasars, finding that they make up ~20% of the total quasar population for K<~15.5.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/667/673
- Title:
- FIRST-2MASS red quasar survey
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/667/673
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Combining radio observations with optical and infrared color selection, demonstrated in our pilot study to be an efficient selection algorithm for finding red quasars, we have obtained optical and infrared spectroscopy for 120 objects in a complete sample of 156 candidates from a sky area of 2716deg^2^.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/121/1872
- Title:
- FIRST radio-selected QSOs
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/121/1872
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We have obtained single-epoch optical photometry for 202 quasars, taken from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey (FBQS), which span a wide range in radio loudness. Comparison with the magnitudes of these objects on the POSS-I plates provides by far the largest sample of long-term variability amplitudes for radio-selected quasars yet produced. We find the quasars to be more variable in the blue than in the red band, consistent with work on optically selected samples. The previously noted trend of decreasing variability with increasing optical luminosity applies only to radio-quiet objects. Furthermore, we do not confirm a rise in variability amplitude with redshift, nor do we see any dependence on radio flux or luminosity. The variability over a radio-optical flux ratio range spanning a factor of 60000 from radio-quiet to extreme radio-loud objects is largely constant, although there is a suggestion of greater variability in the extreme radio-loud objects. We demonstrate the importance of Malmquist bias in variability studies and develop a procedure to correct for the bias in order to reveal the underlying variability properties of the sample.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/559/A95
- Title:
- Fitted proper motions for the DR solution
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/559/A95
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We propose new estimates of the secular aberration drift, mainly due to the rotation of the Solar System about the Galactic center, based on up-to-date VLBI observations and and improved method of outlier elimination. We fit degree-2 vector spherical harmonics to extragalactic radio source proper motion field derived from geodetic VLBI observations spanning 1979-2013. We pay particular attention to the outlier elimination procedure to remove outliers from (i) radio source coordinate time series and (ii) the proper motion sample. We obtain more accurate values of the Solar system acceleration compared to those in our previous paper. The acceleration vector is oriented towards the Galactic center within ~7{deg}. The component perpendicular to the Galactic plane is statistically insignificant. We show that an insufficient cleaning of the data set can lead to strong variations in the dipole amplitude and orientation, and statistically biased results.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/151/142
- Title:
- Five years of blazar observations with VERITAS
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/151/142
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Between the beginning of its full-scale scientific operations in 2007 and 2012, the VERITAS Cherenkov telescope array observed more than 130 blazars; of these, 26 were detected as very-high-energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) {gamma}-ray sources. In this work, we present the analysis results of a sample of 114 undetected objects. The observations constitute a total live-time of ~570 hr. The sample includes several unidentified Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) sources (located at high Galactic latitude) as well as all the sources from the second Fermi-LAT catalog (Nolan et al. 2012, J/ApJS/199/31) that are contained within the field of view of the VERITAS observations. We have also performed optical spectroscopy measurements in order to estimate the redshift of some of these blazars that do not have spectroscopic distance estimates. We present new optical spectra from the Kast instrument on the Shane telescope at the Lick observatory for 18 blazars included in this work, which allowed for the successful measurement or constraint on the redshift of four of them. For each of the blazars included in our sample, we provide the flux upper limit in the VERITAS energy band. We also study the properties of the significance distributions and we present the result of a stacked analysis of the data set, which shows a 4{sigma} excess.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/846/34
- Title:
- Flaring gamma-ray sources; LAT 7.4yr (2FAV)
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/846/34
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present the second catalog of flaring gamma-ray sources (2FAV) detected with the Fermi All-sky Variability Analysis (FAVA), a tool that blindly searches for transients over the entire sky observed by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. With respect to the first FAVA catalog, this catalog benefits from a larger data set, the latest LAT data release (Pass 8), as well as from an improved analysis that includes likelihood techniques for a more precise localization of the transients. Applying this analysis to the first 7.4 years of Fermi observations, and in two separate energy bands 0.1-0.8GeV and 0.8-300GeV, a total of 4547 flares were detected with significance greater than 6{sigma} (before trials), on the timescale of one week. Through spatial clustering of these flares, 518 variable gamma-ray sources were identified. Based on positional coincidence, likely counterparts have been found for 441 sources, mostly among the blazar class of active galactic nuclei. For 77 2FAV sources, no likely gamma-ray counterpart has been found. For each source in the catalog, we provide the time, location, and spectrum of each flaring episode. Studying the spectra of the flares, we observe a harder-when-brighter behavior for flares associated with blazars, with the exception of BL Lac flares detected in the low-energy band. The photon indexes of the flares are never significantly smaller than 1.5. For a leptonic model, and under the assumption of isotropy, this limit suggests that the spectrum of freshly accelerated electrons is never harder than p~2.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AZh/89/388
- Title:
- Flat-spectrum radio sources long-term variability
- Short Name:
- J/AZh/89/388
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The paper reports the results of ten-year centimeter-wavelength observations with the RATAN-600 radio telescope of a complete sample of 83 flat-spectrum sources from the GB6 catalog of the MGB Survey (Cat. VIII/40), with S_4.85_>200mJy at declinations 10{deg}-12{deg}30'. Starting in 2000, the observations were conducted simultaneously at six frequencies in the range 0.97-21.7GHz. Seventy-six sources (including 54 quasars) have been identified with optical objects, which have redshifts in the range z=0.331-3.601.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/874/8
- Title:
- Follow-up spectroscopy of SDSS changing-look QSOs
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/874/8
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that show strong rest-frame optical/UV variability in their blue continuum and broad line emission are classified as changing-look AGN, or at higher luminosities, changing-look quasars (CLQs). These surprisingly large and sometimes rapid transitions challenge accepted models of quasar physics and duty cycles, offer several new avenues for study of quasar host galaxies, and open a wider interpretation of the cause of differences between broad and narrow-line AGN. To better characterize extreme quasar variability, we present follow-up spectroscopy as part of a comprehensive search for CLQs across the full Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) footprint using spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the SDSS DR7 catalog. Our primary selection requires large-amplitude (|{Delta}g|>1mag, |{Delta}r|>0.5mag) variability over any of the available time baselines probed by the SDSS and Pan-STARRS 1 surveys. We employ photometry from the Catalina Sky Survey to verify variability behavior in CLQ candidates where available, and confirm CLQs using optical spectroscopy from the William Herschel, MMT, Magellan, and Palomar telescopes. For our adopted signal-to-noise ratio threshold on variability of broad H{beta} emission, we find 17 new CLQs, yielding a confirmation rate of >~20%. These candidates are at lower Eddington ratio relative to the overall quasar population, which supports a disk-wind model for the broad line region. Based on our sample, the CLQ fraction increases from 10% to roughly half as the continuum flux ratio between repeat spectra at 3420{AA} increases from 1.5 to 6. We release a catalog of more than 200 highly variable candidates to facilitate future CLQ searches.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/892/105
- Title:
- Fourth catalog of Fermi LAT-detected AGNs (4LAC)
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/892/105
- Date:
- 17 Jan 2022 00:31:09
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The fourth catalog of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Large Area Telescope (4LAC) between 2008 August 4 and 2016 August 2 contains 2863 objects located at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>10{deg}). It includes 85% more sources than the previous 3LAC catalog based on 4yr of data. AGNs represent at least 79% of the high-latitude sources in the fourth Fermi-Large Area Telescope Source Catalog (4FGL), which covers the energy range from 50MeV to 1TeV. In addition, 344 gamma-ray AGNs are found at low Galactic latitudes. Most of the 4LAC AGNs are blazars (98%), while the remainder are other types of AGNs. The blazar population consists of 24% Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs), 38% BL Lac-type objects, and 38% blazar candidates of unknown types (BCUs). On average, FSRQs display softer spectra and stronger variability in the gamma-ray band than BL Lacs do, confirming previous findings. All AGNs detected by ground-based atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes are also found in the 4LAC.
