Population Of Extragalactic Radio Sources Research Articles

The MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey Data Release 2: Wideband continuum catalogues and a measurement of the cosmic radio dipole

We present the second data release of the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS), consisting of wideband continuum catalogues of 391 pointings observed at L band. The full wideband catalogue covers 4344 deg2 of sky, reaches a depth of 10 µJy beam−1, and contains 971 980 sources. With its balance between survey depth and sky coverage, MALS DR2 covers five orders of magnitude of flux density, presenting a robust view of the extragalactic radio source population down to 200 µJy. Using this catalogue, we perform a measurement of the cosmic radio dipole, an anisotropy in the number counts of radio sources with respect to the cosmic background, analogous to the dipole found in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). For this measurement, we present the characterisation of completeness and noise properties of the catalogue, and show that a declination-dependent systematic affects the number density of faint sources. In the dipole measurement on the MALS catalogue, we recover reasonable dipole measurements once we model the declination systematic with a linear fit between the size of the major axis of the restoring beam and the amount of sources of each pointing. The final results are consistent with the CMB dipole in terms of direction and amplitude, unlike many recent measurements of the cosmic radio dipole made with other centimetre wavelength catalogues, which generally show a significantly larger amplitude. This result demonstrates the value of dipole measurements with deeper and more sparse radio surveys, as the population of faint sources probed may have had a significant impact on the measured dipole.

Spectral variability of radio sources at low frequencies

ABSTRACT Spectral variability of radio sources encodes information about the conditions of intervening media, source structure, and emission processes. With new low-frequency radio interferometers observing over wide fractional bandwidths, studies of spectral variability for a large population of extragalactic radio sources are now possible. Using two epochs of observations from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey that were taken one year apart, we search for spectral variability across 100–230 MHz for 21 558 sources. We present methodologies for detecting variability in the spectrum between epochs and for classifying the type of variability: either as a change in spectral shape or as a uniform change in flux density across the bandwidth. We identify 323 sources with significant spectral variability over a year-long time-scale. Of the 323 variable sources, we classify 51 of these as showing a significant change in spectral shape. Variability is more prevalent in peaked-spectrum sources, analogous to gigahertz-peaked spectrum and compact steep-spectrum sources, compared to typical radio galaxies. We discuss the viability of several potential explanations of the observed spectral variability, such as interstellar scintillation and jet evolution. Our results suggest that the radio sky in the megahertz regime is more dynamic than previously suggested.

HerMES: disentangling active galactic nuclei and star formation in the radio source population

We separate the extragalactic radio source population above ~50 uJy into active galactic nuclei (AGN) and star-forming sources. The primary method of our approach is to fit the infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs), constructed using Spitzer/IRAC and MIPS and Herschel/SPIRE photometry, of 380 radio sources in the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South. From the fitted SEDs, we determine the relative AGN and star-forming contributions to their infrared emission. With the inclusion of other AGN diagnostics such as X-ray luminosity, Spitzer/IRAC colours, radio spectral index and the ratio of star-forming total infrared flux to k-corrected 1.4 GHz flux density, qIR, we determine whether the radio emission in these sources is powered by star formation or by an AGN. The majority of these radio sources (60 per cent) show the signature of an AGN at some wavelength. Of the sources with AGN signatures, 58 per cent are hybrid systems for which the radio emission is being powered by star formation. This implies that radio sources which have likely been selected on their star formation have a high AGN fraction. Below a 1.4 GHz flux density of 1 mJy, along with finding a strong contribution to the source counts from pure star-forming sources, we find that hybrid sources constitute 20-65 per cent of the sources. This result suggests that hybrid sources have a significant contribution, along with sources that do not host a detectable AGN, to the observed flattening of the source counts at ~1mJy for the extragalactic radio source population.

DETECTING THE COSMIC DIPOLE ANISOTROPY IN LARGE-SCALE RADIO SURVEYS

The detection of a dipole anisotropy in the sky distribution of sources in large-scale radio surveys can be used to constrain the magnitude and direction of our local motion with respect to an isotropically distributed extragalactic radio source population. Such a population is predicted to be present at cosmological redshifts in an isotropically expanding universe. The extragalactic radio source population is observed to have a median redshift of z ~ 1, a much later epoch than the cosmic microwave background (z ~ 1100). I consider the detectability of a velocity dipole anisotropy in radio surveys having a finite number of source counts. The statistical significance of a velocity dipole detection from radio source counts is also discussed in detail. I find that existing large-scale radio survey catalogs do not have a sufficient number of sources to detect the expected velocity dipole with statistical significance, even if survey masking and flux calibration complications can be completely eliminated (i.e., if both the surveys and observing instruments are perfect). However, a dipole anisotropy should be easily detectable in future radio surveys planned with next-generation radio facilities, such as the Low Frequency Array and the Square Kilometer Array; tight constraints on the dipole magnitude and direction should be possible if flux calibration problems can be sufficiently minimized or corrected and contamination from local sources eliminated.

What ignites optical jets?

The properties of radio galaxies and quasars with and without optical or X-ray jets are compared. The majority of jets from which high-frequency emission has been detected so far (13 with optical emission, 11 with X-rays, 13 with both) are associated with the most powerful radio sources at any given redshift. It is found that optical/X-ray jet sources are more strongly beamed than the average population of extragalactic radio sources. This suggests that the detection or non-detection of optical emission from jets has so far been dominated by surface brightness selection effects, not by jet physics. It implies that optical jets are much more common than is currently appreciated.

What Will the Next Generation Radio Telescope Detect at 1.4 GHz

An international project is underway to design and build a radiotelescope with an effective collecting area two orders of magnitude greaterthan the largest existing instruments. One of the many scientific goals of thisinstrument will be the investigation of the extragalactic radio sourcepopulation at flux densities two to three orders of magnitude fainter thanthe limits of existing observations. We present simulations of the radiosky at 1.4 GHz down to a flux density limit of 0.1 μJy usingextrapolations of known radio luminosity functions for two differentpopulation scenarios. The resulting simulations confirm that a resolutionof 0''.1 is necessary to avoid formal confusion, but sourceblending may still dominate if the intrinsic size of such faint sourcesis larger than a few kiloparsecs.

Shock Excitation of Emission Lines and the Relation to GPS Sources

Gigahertz Peak Spectrum (GPS) and Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) sources have attracted a large amount of attention in recent years since they occupy a surprisingly large fraction of the extragalactic radio source population. In this paper we summarise a theory which attempts to unify the optical emission line and radio properties of these sources. In outline the theory is as follows: The bow shock preceding the radio lobe driven into the ISM by a powerful radio jet ionizes the ISM producing both optical line emission and a free-free absorbing screen. The free-free absorption can explain the relationship between size and turnover frequency (Stanghellini et al., 1995) and the prediction of the line emission is in accord with the observation for a small sample of sources for which optical data are available.

A direct determination of linear-size evolution of elliptical radio galaxies

A redshift dependence of the maximum distance out to which active galactic nuclei (AGN) can transport their relativistic particles was first found for radio quasars by Miley1. He demonstrated that this distance was, on average, smaller in the past than it is at present, Analysing the run of median angular size with flux density for the entire extragalactic radio source population, Kapahi2 concluded that the radio galaxy population probably shares this property with the extended radio quasars. By using samples of radio ellipticals complete to vastly different flux limits, we can, for the first time, separate redshift- and luminosity-dependences of their linear sizes. Ram pressure in a medium with cosmologically varying density will naturally cause a dependence on redshift3, but this cannot explain so steep a dependence as that implied here. It may be expected if galaxy haloes influence the outward energy transport4.