分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
摘要： Extremely variable quasars (EVQs) are a population of sources showing large optical photometric variability revealed by time-domain surveys. The physical origin of such extreme variability is yet unclear. In this first paper of a series, we construct the largest-ever sample of 14,012 EVQs using photometric data spanning over $>$ 15 years from SDSS and Pan-STARRS1. We divide them into five sub-samples according to the relative brightness of an EVQ during SDSS spectroscopic observation compared to the mean brightness from photometric observations. Corresponding control samples of normal quasars are built with matched redshift, bolometric luminosity and supermassive black hole mass. We obtain the composite SDSS spectra of EVQs in various states and their corresponding control samples. We find EVQs exhibit clearly bluer (redder) SDSS spectra during bright (dim) states, consistent with the "bluer-when-brighter" trend widely seen in normal quasars. We further find the line EWs of broad MgII, CIV and OIII (but not broad Hb which is yet puzzling) gradually decrease from dim state to bright state, similar to the so-called intrinsic Baldwin effect commonly seen in normal AGNs. Meanwhile, EVQs have systematically larger line EWs compared with the control samples. We also see that EVQs exhibit subtle excess in the very broad line component compared with control samples. Possible explanations for the discoveries are discussed. Our findings support the hypothesis that EVQs are in the tail of a broad distribution of quasar properties, but not a distinct population.
分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
摘要： The radio emission in radio-quiet quasars (RQQs) has been a long mystery and its physical origin remains unclear. In a previous work we find UV/optical more variable quasars have stronger X-ray emission, indicating a link between disc turbulence and X-ray corona heating. In this work, for the first time, we investigate the relation between UV/optical variability and the radio emission in RQQs selected from SDSS stripe 82 and FIRST radio survey. We median stack the FIRST images and detect clear signals from RQQs in the co-added images of individually radio non-detected sources. Controlling the effects of other parameters, including redshift, black hole mass, bolometric luminosity and Eddington ratio, we find more variable RQQs, which are known to be X-ray relatively brighter, show tentatively weaker radio emission, contrary to the linear X-ray/radio correlation if the radio emission is from or driven by the corona. The discovery also suggests that if the radio emission in RQQs is driven by AGN activity (such as weak jet), the underlying driving process is independent to the disc turbulence which drives UV/optical variability and probably also corona heating. Alternatively, the radio emission could be due to star formation in the host galaxies.
分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
Xinwen Shu
Lei Yang
Daizhong Liu
Wei-Hao Wang
Tao Wang
Yunkun Han
Xingxing Huang
Chen-Fatt Lim
Yu-Yen Chang
Wei Zheng
Xianzhong Zheng
Junxian Wang
Xu Kong
摘要： We present ALMA 870um and JCMT SCUBA2 850um dust continuum observations of a sample of optically dark and strongly lensed galaxies in the cluster fields. The ALMA and SCUBA2 observations reach a median rms of about 0.11 mJy and 0.44 mJy, respectively, with the latter close to the confusion limit of the data at 850um. This represents one of the most sensitive searches for dust emission in optically dark galaxies. We detect the dust emission in 12 out of 15 galaxies at >3.8 sigma, corresponding to a detection rate of 80 per cent. Thanks to the gravitational lensing, our observations reach a deeper limiting flux than previous surveys in blank fields by a factor of 3. We estimate delensed infrared luminosities in the range log(LIR)=11.5-12.7 Lsun, which correspond to dust-obscured star formation rates (SFRs) of 30 to 520 Msun per year. Stellar population fits to the optical-to-NIR photometric data yield a median redshift z=4.26 and de-lensed stellar mass log(Mstar)=10.78 Msun. They contribute a lensing-corrected star-formation rate density at least an order of magnitude higher than that of equivalently massive UV-selected galaxies at z>3. The results suggest that there is a missing population of massive star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, which may dominate the SFR density at the massive end. Five optically dark galaxies are located within r99.974% from Poisson statistics. Follow-up spectroscopic observations with ALMA and JWST are crucial to confirm whether it is associated with a protocluster at similar redshifts.
分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
Yunjing Wu
Zheng Cai
Marcel Neeleman
Kristian Finlator
Shiwu Zhang
J. Xavier Prochaska
Ran Wang
Bjorn H.
C Emonts
Xiaohui Fan
Laura C. Keating
Feige Wang
Jinyi Yang
Joseph F. Hennawi
Junxian Wang
摘要： The physical and chemical properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) at $z\gtrsim6$ have been studied successfully through the absorption in the spectra of background Quasi-Stellar Objects (QSOs). One of the most crucial questions is to investigate the nature and location of the source galaxies that give rise to these early metal absorbers. Theoretical models suggest that momentum-driven outflows from typical star-forming galaxies can eject metals into the CGM and the intergalactic medium (IGM) at z=5-6. Deep, dedicated surveys have searched for Ly$\alpha$ emission associated with strong CIV absorbers at $z\approx 6$, but only a few Ly$\alpha$ emitter candidates have been detected. Interpreting these detections is moreover ambiguous because Ly$\alpha$ is a resonant line, raising the need for complementary techniques for detecting absorbers' host galaxies. Here, using Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), we report a [C II] 158$\mu$m emitter associated with a strong low-ionization absorber, OI, at $z=5.978$. The projected impact parameter between OI and [C II] emitter is 20.0 kpc. The measured [C II] luminosity is $7.0\times 10^7$ solar luminosities. Further analysis indicates that strong OI absorbers may reside in the circumgalactic medium of massive halos one to two orders of magnitude more massive than expected values.
分类： 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间： 2023-02-19
Ting Li
Mouyuan Sun
Xiaoyu Xu
W. N. Brandt
Jonathan R. Trump
Zhefu Yu
Junxian Wang
Yongquan Xue
Zhenyi Cai
Wei-Min Gu
Y. Homayouni
Tong Liu
Jun-Feng Wang
Zhixiang Zhang
Hai-Kun Li
摘要： Inconsistent conclusions are obtained from recent active galactic nuclei (AGNs) accretion disk inter-band time-lag measurements. While some works show that the measured time lags are significantly larger (by a factor of $\sim 3$) than the theoretical predictions of the Shakura \& Sunyaev disk (SSD) model, others find that the time-lag measurements are consistent with (or only slightly larger than) that of the SSD model. These conflicting observational results might be symptoms of our poor understanding of AGN accretion physics. Here we show that sources with larger-than-expected time lags tend to be less-luminous AGNs. Such a dependence is unexpected if the inter-band time lags are attributed to the light-travel-time delay of the illuminating variable X-ray photons to the static SSD. If, instead, the measured inter-band lags are related not only to the static SSD but also to the outer broad emission-line regions (BLRs; e.g., the blended broad emission lines and/or diffuse continua), our result indicates that the contribution of the non-disk BLR to the observed UV/optical continuum decreases with increasing luminosity ($L$), i.e., an anti-correlation resembling the well-known Baldwin effect. Alternatively, we argue that the observed dependence might be a result of coherent disk thermal fluctuations as the relevant thermal timescale, $\tau_{\mathrm{TH}}\propto L^{0.5}$. With future accurate measurements of inter-band time lags, the above two scenarios can be distinguished by inspecting the dependence of inter-band time lags upon either the BLR components in the variable spectra or the timescales.
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