scholarly journals X-Ray Aspects of the IRAS Galaxies

1998 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 145-148
Author(s):  
E.J.A. Meurs

Several IRAS galaxies have been detected at X-rays, with a variety of satellite observatories. About half of these are classified optically as Seyfert galaxies. Among those not (convincingly) classified as AGN, many have X-ray luminosities for which stellar evolution products offer convenient explanations. Some non-active IRAS galaxies display anomalously high levels of X-ray emission for which several conceivable origins are investigated: optical misclassification, X-ray misidentification, hidden AGN, incidental activity, starburst, environmental sources. X-ray spectral studies and temporal variations constitute important tools for further investigation, for instance to assess the strength of a starburst or to establish signatures of an active core.

1994 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 380-380
Author(s):  
G. Matt ◽  
A.C. Fabian ◽  
R.R. Ross

The presence of iron lines and high energy excesses in the X-ray spectra of Seyfert galaxies has been firmly established by Ginga (e.g. Nandra & Pounds 1993 and references therein). These features are generally interpreted as signatures of the reprocessing of the primary X-rays by matter in the neighbourhood of the central black hole, probably distributed in an accretion disc (Lightman & White 1988, George & Fabian 1991, Matt, Perola & Piro 1991).


1983 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 491-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.C. Fabian

Recent X-ray observations of active galactic nuclei and Seyfert galaxies in particular are briefly reviewed. The application of the efficiency limit to rapidly varying luminous sources such as NGC 6814 is discussed. It is argued that the variability and probable MeV spectral turnover imply that most of the electrons which radiate the observed flux are only mildly relativistic. A possible link between the steep soft X-ray spectra and featureless optical continua of BL Lac objects is considered.


2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (3) ◽  
pp. 2664-2672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amar Deo Chandra ◽  
Jayashree Roy ◽  
P C Agrawal ◽  
Manojendu Choudhury

ABSTRACT We present the timing and spectral studies of RX J0209.6–7427 during its rare 2019 outburst using observations with the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) and Large Area X-ray Proportional Counter (LAXPC) instruments on the AstroSat satellite. Pulsations having a periodicity of 9.29 s were detected for the first time by the NICER mission in the 0.2–10 keV energy band and, as reported here, by AstroSat over a broad energy band covering 0.3–80 keV. The pulsar exhibits a rapid spin-up during the outburst. Energy resolved folded pulse profiles are generated in several energy bands in 3–80 keV. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report of the timing and spectral characteristics of this Be binary pulsar in hard X-rays. There is suggestion of evolution of the pulse profile with energy. The energy spectrum of the pulsar is determined and from the best-fitting spectral values, the X-ray luminosity of RX J0209.6−7427 is inferred to be 1.6 × 1039 erg s−1. Our timing and spectral studies suggest that this source has features of an ultraluminous X-ray pulsar in the Magellanic Bridge. Details of the results are presented and discussed in terms of the current ideas.


1996 ◽  
Vol 160 ◽  
pp. 477-478
Author(s):  
A.D. Bobra ◽  
Harish Chandra ◽  
Hari Om Vats ◽  
P. Janardhan ◽  
G.D. Vyas ◽  
...  

Interplanetary Scintillation (IPS) is a diffraction phenomenon in which coherent electro-magnetic radiation, from a distant radio source, passes through the solar wind, which is a turbulent refracting medium, and suffers scattering. This results in random temporal variations of the signal intensity (scintillation) at the Earth. IPS observations to monitor the interplanetary medium (IPM), to measure solar wind velocities in the directions of a number of compact extra-galactic radio sources and to estimate the angular diameters of their compact components have been carried out for many years at 103 MHz using the IPS facility (Alurkar et al. 1989) of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, India. Over a period of approximately 10 years of such observations, it has been seen that PSR 0950+08 has always remained well within the noise level. We observed a sudden enhancement in its flux (Deshpande et al. 1994) on 29 July, 1992. The ionospheric observations which are being carried out on a regular basis at PRL using an ionosonde also recorded a steep increase in the absorption index Fmin, which is an indicator of the excess ionization produced due to X-rays. During this period, the Sun was exceptionally quiet, thereby raising the question about the origin of the X-ray flux responsible for the observed steep rise in Fminduring the transit of PSR 0950+08.


1983 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 345-346
Author(s):  
M. Kafatos ◽  
Jean A. Eilek

The origin of the high energy (X-ray and gamma-ray) background may be attributed to discrete sources, which are usually thought to be active galactic nuclei (AGN) (cf. Rothschild et al. 1982, Bignami et al. 1979). At X-rays a lot of information has been obtained with HEAO-1 in the spectral range 2–165 keV. At gamma-rays the background has been estimated from the Apollo 15 and 16 (Trombka et al. 1977) and SAS-2 (Bignami et al. 1979) observations. A summary of some of the observations (Rothschild et al. 1982) is shown in Figure 1. The contribution of AGN to the diffuse high energy background is uncertain at X-rays although it is generally estimated to be in the 20–30% range (Rothschild et al. 1982). At gamma-rays, in the range 1–150 MeV, AGN (specifically Seyfert galaxies) could account for all the emission.


2021 ◽  
Vol 923 (1) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Morgan Stores ◽  
Natasha L. S. Jeffrey ◽  
Eduard P. Kontar

Abstract Magnetohydrodynamic plasma turbulence is believed to play a vital role in the production of energetic electrons during solar flares, and the nonthermal broadening of spectral lines is a key sign of this turbulence. Here, we determine how flare turbulence evolves in time and space using spectral profiles of Fe xxiv, Fe xxiii, and Fe xvi, observed by the Hinode/EUV Imaging Spectrometer. Maps of nonthermal velocity are created for times covering the X-ray rise, peak, and decay. For the first time, the creation of kinetic energy density maps reveal where energy is available for energization, suggesting that similar levels of energy may be available to heat and/or accelerate electrons in large regions of the flare. We find that turbulence is distributed throughout the entire flare, often greatest in the coronal loop tops, and decaying at different rates at different locations. For hotter ions (Fe xxiv and Fe xxiii), the nonthermal velocity decreases as the flare evolves and during/after the X-ray peak shows a clear spatial variation decreasing linearly from the loop apex toward the ribbon. For the cooler ion (Fe xvi), the nonthermal velocity remains relativity constant throughout the flare, but steeply increases in one region corresponding to the southern ribbon, peaking just prior to the peak in hard X-rays before declining. The results suggest turbulence has a more complex temporal and spatial structure than previously assumed, while newly introduced turbulent kinetic energy maps show the availability of the energy and identify important spatial inhomogeneities in the macroscopic plasma motions leading to turbulence.


2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Masaki Numazawa ◽  
Yuichiro Ezoe ◽  
Kumi Ishikawa ◽  
Takaya Ohashi ◽  
Yoshizumi Miyoshi ◽  
...  

Abstract We report on results of imaging and spectral studies of X-ray emission from Jupiter observed by Suzaku. In 2006, Suzaku found diffuse X-ray emission in 1–5 keV associated with Jovian inner radiation belts. It has been suggested that the emission is caused by the inverse-Compton scattering by ultra-relativistic electrons (∼50 MeV) in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. To confirm the existence of this emission and to understand its relation to the solar activity, we conducted an additional Suzaku observation in 2014 around the maximum of the 24th solar cycle. As a result, we successfully found the diffuse emission around Jupiter in 1–5 keV again, and also found point-like emission in 0.4–1 keV. The luminosity of the point-like emission, which was probably composed of solar X-ray scattering, charge exchange, or auroral bremsstrahlung emission, increased by a factor of ∼5 with respect to the findings from 2006, most likely due to an increase of the solar activity. The diffuse emission spectrum in the 1–5 keV band was well-fitted with a flat power-law function (Γ = 1.4 ± 0.1) as in the past observation, which supported the inverse-Compton scattering hypothesis. However, its spatial distribution changed from ∼12 × 4 Jovian radius (Rj) to ∼20 × 7 Rj. The luminosity of the diffuse emission increased by the smaller factor of ∼3. This indicates that the diffuse emission is not simply responding to the solar activity, which is also known to cause little effect on the distribution of high-energy electrons around Jupiter. Further sensitive study of the spatial and spectral distributions of the diffuse hard X-ray emission is important to understand how high-energy particles are accelerated in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (2) ◽  
pp. 1987-1998
Author(s):  
N Chang ◽  
F G Xie ◽  
X Liu ◽  
L C Ho ◽  
A-J Dong ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Because the disc–jet coupling likely depends on various properties of sources probed, the sample control is always an important but challenging task. In this work, we re-analysed the INTEGRAL hard X-ray-selected sample of Seyfert galaxies. We only consider sources that have measurements in black hole (BH) mass, and luminosities in radio and X-rays. Our final sample includes 64 (out of the original 79) sources, consists of both bright active galactic nucleus and low-luminosity ones. The 2–10 keV X-ray Eddington ratio LX/LEdd locates in the range between ∼10−4.5 and ∼10−0.5. We first find that, because of the similarity in the LHX/LX distribution, the X-ray origin of radio-loud Seyferts may be the same to that of radio-quiet (RQ) ones, where we attribute to the hot accretion flow (or similarly, the corona). We then investigate the connections between luminosities in radio and X-rays. Since our sample suffers a selection bias of a BH mass MBH dependence on LX/LEdd, we focus on the correlation slope ξX between the radio (at 1.4 GHz) and X-ray luminosities in Eddington unit, i.e. $({L_{\rm R}}/{L_{\rm Edd}}) \propto ({L_{\rm X}}/{L_{\rm Edd}})^{\xi _{\rm X}}$. We classify the sources according to various properties, i.e. 1) Seyfert classification, 2) radio loudness, and 3) radio morphology. We find that, despite these differences in classification, all the sources in our sample are consistent with a universal correlation slope ξX (note that the normalization may be different), with ξX = 0.77 ± 0.10. This is unexpected, considering various possible radio emitters in RQ systems. For the jet (either relativistic and well collimated, or sub-relativistic and weakly collimated) interpretation, our result may suggest a common/universal but to be identified jet launching mechanism among all the Seyfert galaxies, while properties like BH spin and magnetic field strength only play secondary roles. We further estimate the jet production efficiency ηjet of Seyfert galaxies, which is $\eta _{\rm jet}\approx 1.9^{+0.9}_{-1.5}\times 10^{-4}$ on average. We also find that ηjet increases as the system goes fainter. Alternative scenarios for the radio emission in RQ systems are also discussed.


1972 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 845-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon Van Speybroeck

The catalog of X-ray sources now includes types I and II super-novae remnants, at least one pulsar, other periodic or quasi-periodic sources, starlike objects which emit primarily in X rays, normal galaxies, radio galaxies, Seyfert galaxies, a quasar, and an apparently isotropic extragalactic background. There is ample evidence that X-ray emission is characteristic of many of the most interesting objects in astronomy, and the background may have cosmological implications. This should not be too surprising, since significant X-ray emission occurs whenever high energy electrons interact, and high energy electron production is usually associated with explosive phenomena.The most useful energy range for X-ray observations extends from about 200 eV to perhaps 10 keV. The low energy limit results from the absorption by the interstellar media, which of course varies from object to object; some typical cutoffs are given in Table I. The high energy limit, which is much more arbitrary, results from the usually observed rapidly decreasing emission with increasing energy, and also from the lack of important characteristic emission or absorption features above this energy range. In many cases, however, observations outside of this energy range are required to definitively identify a dominant source mechanism.


2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (4) ◽  
pp. 4843-4857 ◽  
Author(s):  
S R Oates ◽  
S Motta ◽  
A P Beardmore ◽  
D M Russell ◽  
P Gandhi ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The black hole binary, V404 Cygni, went into outburst in 2015 June, after 26 years of X-ray quiescence. We observed the outburst with the Neil Gehrels Swift observatory. We present optical/UV observations taken with the Swift Ultra-violet Optical Telescope, and compare them with the X-ray observations obtained with the Swift X-ray Telescope. We find that dust extinction affecting the optical/UV does not correlate with absorption due to neutral hydrogen that affects the X-ray emission. We suggest there is a small inhomogeneous high-density absorber containing a negligible amount of dust, close to the black hole. Overall, temporal variations in the optical/UV appear to trace those in the X-rays. During some epochs we observe an optical time-lag of (15–35) s. For both the optical/UV and X-rays, the amplitude of the variations correlates with flux, but this correlation is less significant in the optical/UV. The variability in the light curves may be produced by a complex combination of processes. Some of the X-ray variability may be due to the presence of a local, inhomogeneous and dust-free absorber, while variability visible in both the X-ray and optical/UV may instead be driven by the accretion flow: the X-rays are produced in the inner accretion disc, some of which are reprocessed to the optical/UV; and/or the X-ray and optical/UV emission is produced within the jet.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document