scholarly journals The optically selected 1.4-GHz quasar luminosity function below 1 mJy

2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (4) ◽  
pp. 5297-5312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliab Malefahlo ◽  
Mario G Santos ◽  
Matt J Jarvis ◽  
Sarah V White ◽  
Jonathan T L Zwart

ABSTRACT We present the radio luminosity function (RLF) of optically selected quasars below 1 mJy, constructed by applying a Bayesian-fitting stacking technique to objects well below the nominal radio flux density limit. We test the technique using simulated data, confirming that we can reconstruct the RLF over three orders of magnitude below the typical 5σ detection threshold. We apply our method to 1.4-GHz flux densities from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters (FIRST) survey, extracted at the positions of optical quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey over seven redshift bins up to z = 2.15, and measure the RLF down to two orders of magnitude below the FIRST detection threshold. In the lowest redshift bin (0.2 < z < 0.45), we find that our measured RLF agrees well with deeper data from the literature. The RLF for the radio-loud quasars flattens below $\log _{10}[L_{1.4}/{\rm W\, Hz}^{-1}] \approx 25.5$ and becomes steeper again below $\log _{10}[L_{1.4}/{\rm W\, Hz}^{-1}] \approx 24.8$, where radio-quiet quasars start to emerge. The radio luminosity where radio-quiet quasars emerge coincides with the luminosity where star-forming galaxies are expected to start dominating the radio source counts. This implies that there could be a significant contribution from star formation in the host galaxies, but additional data are required to investigate this further. The higher redshift bins show a similar behaviour to the lowest z bin, implying that the same physical process may be responsible.

Author(s):  
T. M. O. Franzen ◽  
N. Seymour ◽  
E. M. Sadler ◽  
T. Mauch ◽  
S. V. White ◽  
...  

Abstract The GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) is a radio continuum survey at 76–227 MHz of the entire southern sky (Declination $<\!{+}30^{\circ}$ ) with an angular resolution of ${\approx}2$ arcmin. In this paper, we combine GLEAM data with optical spectroscopy from the 6dF Galaxy Survey to construct a sample of 1 590 local (median $z \approx 0.064$ ) radio sources with $S_{200\,\mathrm{MHz}} > 55$ mJy across an area of ${\approx}16\,700\,\mathrm{deg}^{2}$ . From the optical spectra, we identify the dominant physical process responsible for the radio emission from each galaxy: 73% are fuelled by an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and 27% by star formation. We present the local radio luminosity function for AGN and star-forming (SF) galaxies at 200 MHz and characterise the typical radio spectra of these two populations between 76 MHz and ${\sim}1$ GHz. For the AGN, the median spectral index between 200 MHz and ${\sim}1$ GHz, $\alpha_{\mathrm{high}}$ , is $-0.600 \pm 0.010$ (where $S \propto \nu^{\alpha}$ ) and the median spectral index within the GLEAM band, $\alpha_{\mathrm{low}}$ , is $-0.704 \pm 0.011$ . For the SF galaxies, the median value of $\alpha_{\mathrm{high}}$ is $-0.650 \pm 0.010$ and the median value of $\alpha_{\mathrm{low}}$ is $-0.596 \pm 0.015$ . Among the AGN population, flat-spectrum sources are more common at lower radio luminosity, suggesting the existence of a significant population of weak radio AGN that remain core-dominated even at low frequencies. However, around 4% of local radio AGN have ultra-steep radio spectra at low frequencies ( $\alpha_{\mathrm{low}} < -1.2$ ). These ultra-steep-spectrum sources span a wide range in radio luminosity, and further work is needed to clarify their nature.


2017 ◽  
Vol 469 (2) ◽  
pp. 1912-1923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Bonato ◽  
Mattia Negrello ◽  
Claudia Mancuso ◽  
Gianfranco De Zotti ◽  
Paolo Ciliegi ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 457 (1) ◽  
pp. 730-744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Prescott ◽  
T. Mauch ◽  
M. J. Jarvis ◽  
K. McAlpine ◽  
D. J. B. Smith ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 780 (2) ◽  
pp. 162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiki Matsuoka ◽  
Michael A. Strauss ◽  
Ted N. Price ◽  
Matthew S. DiDonato

2014 ◽  
Vol 789 (1) ◽  
pp. 91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiki Matsuoka ◽  
Michael A. Strauss ◽  
Ted N. Price ◽  
Matthew S. DiDonato

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S292) ◽  
pp. 372-372
Author(s):  
Hyun-Jin Bae ◽  
Jong-Hak Woo ◽  
Semyeong Oh

AbstractEnergetic outflow from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) may play a critical role in galaxy evolution (e.g., Silk & Rees 1998). We present a velocity diagnostic for detecting gas outflow in the narrow-line region of Type-2 AGNs using line-of-sight velocity offsets of the [O iii] λ5007 and Hα emission lines with respect to the systemic velocity of stars in host galaxies (See Figure 1). We apply the diagnostics to nearby galaxies at 0.02 < z < 0.05, 3775 AGN-host and 907 star-forming galaxies as a comparison sample, which are selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7. After obtaining a best-fit stellar population model for the continuum and a systemic velocity based on stellar lines, we subtract the stellar component to measure velocity offsets of each emission line. We find a sample of 169 AGN-host galaxies with outflow signatures, displaying a larger velocity shift of [O iii] than that of Hα, as expected in a decelerating outflow model (Komossa et al. 2008). We find that the offset velocity of [O iii] increases with Eddington ratio, suggesting that gas outflow depends on the energetics of AGN.


2021 ◽  
Vol 504 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Abhijeet Anand ◽  
Dylan Nelson ◽  
Guinevere Kauffmann

ABSTRACT In order to study the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies we develop an automated pipeline to estimate the optical continuum of quasars and detect intervening metal absorption line systems with a matched kernel convolution technique and adaptive S/N criteria. We process ∼ one million quasars in the latest Data Release 16 (DR16) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and compile a large sample of ∼ 160 000 Mg ii absorbers, together with ∼ 70 000 Fe ii systems, in the redshift range 0.35 &lt; zabs &lt; 2.3. Combining these with the SDSS DR16 spectroscopy of ∼1.1 million luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and ∼200 000 emission line galaxies (ELGs), we investigate the nature of cold gas absorption at 0.5 &lt; z &lt; 1. These large samples allow us to characterize the scale dependence of Mg ii with greater accuracy than in previous work. We find that there is a strong enhancement of Mg ii absorption within ∼50 kpc of ELGs, and the covering fraction within 0.5rvir of ELGs is 2–5 times higher than for LRGs. Beyond 50 kpc, there is a sharp decline in Mg ii for both kinds of galaxies, indicating a transition to the regime where the CGM is tightly linked with the dark matter halo. The Mg ii-covering fraction correlates strongly with stellar mass for LRGs, but weakly for ELGs, where covering fractions increase with star formation rate. Our analysis implies that cool circumgalactic gas has a different physical origin for star-forming versus quiescent galaxies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (4) ◽  
pp. 4469-4490 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Trussler ◽  
Roberto Maiolino ◽  
Claudia Maraston ◽  
Yingjie Peng ◽  
Daniel Thomas ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We investigate the environmental dependence of the stellar populations of galaxies in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Echoing earlier works, we find that satellites are both more metal-rich (&lt;0.1 dex) and older (&lt;2 Gyr) than centrals of the same stellar mass. However, after separating star-forming, green valley, and passive galaxies, we find that the true environmental dependence of both stellar metallicity (&lt;0.03 dex) and age (&lt;0.5 Gyr) is in fact much weaker. We show that the strong environmental effects found when galaxies are not differentiated result from a combination of selection effects brought about by the environmental dependence of the quenched fraction of galaxies, and thus we strongly advocate for the separation of star-forming, green valley, and passive galaxies when the environmental dependence of galaxy properties are investigated. We also study further environmental trends separately for both central and satellite galaxies. We find that star-forming galaxies show no environmental effects, neither for centrals nor for satellites. In contrast, the stellar metallicities of passive and green valley satellites increase weakly (&lt;0.05 and &lt;0.08 dex, respectively) with increasing halo mass, increasing local overdensity and decreasing projected distance from their central; this effect is interpreted in terms of moderate environmental starvation (‘strangulation’) contributing to the quenching of satellite galaxies. Finally, we find a unique feature in the stellar mass–stellar metallicity relation for passive centrals, where galaxies in more massive haloes have larger stellar mass (∼0.1 dex) at constant stellar metallicity; this effect is interpreted in terms of dry merging of passive central galaxies and/or progenitor bias.


2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (3) ◽  
pp. 4309-4319
Author(s):  
Jong Chul Lee ◽  
Ho Seong Hwang ◽  
Hyunmi Song

ABSTRACT To study environmental effects on the circumgalactic medium (CGM), we use the samples of redMaPPer galaxy clusters, background quasars, and cluster galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). With ∼82 000 quasar spectra, we detect 197 Mg ii absorbers in and around the clusters. The detection rate per quasar is 2.7 ± 0.7 times higher inside the clusters than outside the clusters, indicating that Mg ii absorbers are relatively abundant in clusters. However, when considering the galaxy number density, the absorber-to-galaxy ratio is rather low inside the clusters. If we assume that Mg ii absorbers are mainly contributed by the CGM of massive star-forming galaxies, a typical halo size of cluster galaxies is smaller than that of field galaxies by 30 ± 10 per cent. This finding supports that galaxy haloes can be truncated by interaction with the host cluster.


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