- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/769/125
- Title:
- 1.4GHz radio variability in FIRST & SDSS Stripe 82
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/769/125
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We report on a blind survey for extragalactic radio variability that was carried out by comparing two epochs of data from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters survey with a third epoch from a new 1.4GHz survey of SDSS Stripe 82. The three epochs are spaced seven years apart and have an overlapping area of 60deg^2^. We uncover 89 variable sources down to the millijansky level, 75 of which are newly identified, and we find no evidence for transient phenomena. This new sample of variable sources allows us to infer an upper limit to the mean characteristic timescale of active galactic nucleus radio variability of 14yr. We find that only 1% of extragalactic sources have fractional variability f_var_>3, while 44% of Galactic sources vary by this much. The variable sample contains a larger fraction of quasars than a comparable non-variable control sample, though the majority of the variable sources appear to be extended galaxies in the optical. This implies that either quasars are not the dominant contributor to the variability of the sample, or that the deep optical data allow us to detect the host galaxies of some low-z quasars. We use the new, higher resolution data to report on the morphology of the variable sources. Finally, we show that the fraction of sources that are variable remains constant or increases at low flux densities. This may imply that next generation radio surveys with telescopes like Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder and MeerKAT will see a constant or even increasing fraction of variable sources down into the sub-millijansky regime.
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Search Results
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/438/3058
- Title:
- 15GHz variability of {gamma}-ray blazars
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/438/3058
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present results from four years of twice-weekly 15GHz radio monitoring of about 1500 blazars with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40m telescope. Using the intrinsic modulation index to measure variability amplitude, we find that, with >6{sigma} significance, the radio variability of radio-selected {gamma}-ray-loud blazars is stronger than that of {gamma}-ray-quiet blazars. Our extended data set also includes at least 21 months of data for all AGN with 'clean' associations in the Fermi Large Area Telescope First AGN Catalog, 1LAC. With these additional data, we examine the radio variability properties of a {gamma}-ray-selected blazar sample. Within this sample, we find no evidence for a connection between radio variability amplitude and optical classification. In contrast, for our radio-selected sample we find that the BL Lac object subpopulation is more variable than the flat-spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) subpopulation. Radio variability is found to correlate with the synchrotron peak frequency, with low- and intermediate-synchrotron-peaked blazars varying more than high-synchrotron-peaked ones. We find evidence for a significant negative correlation between redshift and radio variability among bright FSRQs.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/130/2529
- Title:
- 8.4GHz VLBI observations of Southern ICRF sources
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/130/2529
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present 8.4GHz very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of 48 southern hemisphere extragalactic sources from the International Celestial Reference Frame. These are the second in a series of observations intended to image all such sources in the southern hemisphere at milliarcsecond resolution and bring the total number of observed sources to 111. We use these data, together with previously published data, to quantify the magnitude of the expected effect of intrinsic source structure on astrometric bandwidth synthesis VLBI observations by calculating a "structure index" for the sources; the structure index yields an estimate of their astrometric quality.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/445/1745
- Title:
- Giant Gemini GMOS survey. I.
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/445/1745
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present spectra of 163 quasars at z_em_>4.4 taken with the Gemini Multi Object Spectrometers, the largest publicly available sample of high-quality (signal-to-noise ratio S/N~20 per 1.85{AA} pixel) low-resolution (full width at half maximum FWHM~320km/s) rest-frame ultraviolet quasar spectra at these redshifts. The sample was selected from SDSS Data Release 7 with the aim to obtain high-S/N follow-up spectra of the intergalactic HI Lyman series and Lyman continuum absorption at high redshift. Each quasar was observed with the GMOS B600 (FWHM~320km/s) and R400 (FWHM~360km/s) gratings to cover the rest-frame wavelength range from ~850 to ~1500{AA}. Here we make the spectra available in reduced form. The accompanying paper presents a detailed description the sample and a measurement of the mean free path to Lyman limit photons in the IGM, based on stacked rest-frame quasar spectra.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/253/25
- Title:
- Giant radio quasars from SDSS, FIRST & NVSS
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/253/25
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present the largest sample of giant radio quasars (GRQs), which are defined as having a projected linear size greater than 0.7Mpc. The sample consists of 272 GRQs, of which 174 are new objects discovered through cross-matching the NRAO Very Large Array Sky Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey 14th Data Release Quasar Catalog (DR14Q) and confirmed using Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters (FIRST) radio maps. In our analysis we compare the GRQs with 367 smaller, lobe-dominated radio quasars found using our search method, as well as with quasars from the SDSS DR14Q, investigating the parameters characterizing their radio emission (i.e., total and core radio luminosity, radio core prominence), optical properties (black hole masses, accretion rates, distribution in Eigenvector 1 plane) and infrared colors. For the GRQs and smaller radio quasars we find a strong correlation between [OIII] luminosity and radio luminosity at 1.4GHz, indicating a strong connection between radio emission and conditions in the narrow-line region. We spot no significant differences between GRQs and smaller radio quasars, however we show that most extended radio quasars belong to a quasar population of evolved active galactic nuclei with large black hole masses and low accretion rates. We also show that GRQs have bluer W2-W3 colors compared to SDSS quasars with FIRST detections, indicating differences in the structure of the dusty torus.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/426/851
- Title:
- Giant Radio Quasars properties
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/426/851
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We analysed the optical and radio properties of lobe-dominated giant-sized (>0.72Mpc) radio quasars and compared the results with those derived for a sample of smaller radio sources to determine whether the large size of some extragalactic radio sources is related to the properties of their nuclei. We compiled the largest (to date) sample of giant radio quasars, including 24 new and 21 previously known objects, and calculated a number of important parameters of their nuclei such as the black hole mass and the accretion rate.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/PAZh/33/403
- Title:
- Globular clusters as gravitational lenses
- Short Name:
- J/PAZh/33/403
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Based on the SDSS catalog, we have found new close quasar-galaxy pairs. We analyze the radial distribution of quasars from pairs around galaxies of different types. We show that the quasars from pairs follow the density profile of halo globular clusters. This is new observational evidence that the quasars projected onto the halos of galaxies are magnified by gravitational lensing by halo globular clusters.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/544/A25
- Title:
- GPS radio sources multifrequency study
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/544/A25
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Gigahertz peaked spectrum (GPS) radio sources are a class of extragalactic radio sources characterized by a spectral peak in the gigahertz domain. They are a mixed class of quasars and galaxies. A large proportion of the sources studied in the literature have only few data points in the radio domain, and the determination of variability and shape of the simultaneous spectra is inadequate. Sources currently included in the GPS source lists are very heterogeneous. We present the observational results from 12 observing campaigns (carried out between 2006 and 2010) at the RATAN-600 radio telescope to obtain the simultaneous radio spectra, which is valuable and necessary to derive genuine GPS sources from flat-spectrum radio sources caught in a flaring state when their spectra are temporarily inverted. The sample contains both quasar- and galaxy-type GPS (122 sources) identified in the literature.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/131/49
- Title:
- Gravitational lenses among z>=4.0 quasars
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/131/49
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We report on i-band snapshot observations of 157 Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars at 4.0<z<5.4 using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to search for evidence of gravitational lensing of these sources.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/409/28
- Title:
- Gravitationally Lensed Quasars
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/409/28
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The Snapshot Survey was a search for cases of gravitational lensing among intrinsically-luminous, high-redshift quasars using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Planetary Camera (PC). The accompanying ASCII tables summarize the results of the survey.
