| 1. |
- Combes, Françoise, et al.
(författare)
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PKS 1413+135: OH and H i at z = 0.247 with MeerKAT
- 2023
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 671
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The BL Lac object PKS 1413+135 was observed by the Large Survey Project MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS) in the L-band, at 1139 MHz and 12931379 MHz, targeting the HI and OH lines in absorption at z=0.24671. The radio continuum might come from the nucleus of the absorbing galaxy or from a background object at redshift lower than 0.5, as suggested by the absence of gravitational images. The HI absorption line is detected at a high signal-To-noise ratio, with a narrow central component, and with a red wing, confirming previous results. The OH 1720 MHz line is clearly detected in (maser) emission, peaking at a velocity shifted by-10 to-15 km s-1 with respect to the HI peak. The 1612 MHz line is lost due to radio frequency interference. The OH 1667 MHz main line is tentatively detected in absorption, but not the 1665 MHz line. Over 30 years a high variability is observed in optical depths, due to the rapid changes of the line of sight caused by the superluminal motions of the radio knots. The HI line has varied by 20% in depth, while the OH-1720 MHz depth has varied by a factor of ∼3. The position of the central velocity and the widths also varied. The absorbing galaxy is an early-Type spiral (maybe S0) seen edge-on, with a prominent dust lane, covering the whole disk. Given the measured mass concentration and the radio continuum size at centimeter wavelengths (100 mas corresponding to 400 pc at z=0.25), the width of the absorption lines from the nuclear regions are expected up to 250 km s-1. The narrowness of the observed lines (< 15 km s-1) suggests that the absorption comes from an outer gas ring, as frequently observed in S0 galaxies. The millimetric lines are even narrower (< 1 km s-1), which corresponds to the continuum size restricted to the core. The radio core is covered by individual 1 pc molecular clouds, whose column density is a few 1022 cm-2, which is compatible with the gas screen detected in X-rays.
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| 2. |
- Emig, K.L., et al.
(författare)
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Discovery of Hydrogen Radio Recombination Lines at z = 0.89 toward PKS 1830-211
- 2023
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 1538-4357 .- 0004-637X. ; 944:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the detection of stimulated hydrogen radio recombination line (RRL) emission from ionized gas in a z = 0.89 galaxy using 580-1670 MHz observations from the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey. The RRL emission originates in a galaxy that intercepts and strongly lenses the radio blazar PKS 1830−211 (z = 2.5). This is the second detection of RRLs outside of the local Universe and the first clearly associated with hydrogen. We detect effective H144α (and H163α) transitions at observed frequencies of 1156 (798) MHz by stacking 17 (27) RRLs with 21σ (14σ) significance. The RRL emission contains two main velocity components and is coincident in velocity with H i 21 cm and OH 18 cm absorption. We use the RRL spectral line energy distribution and a Bayesian analysis to constrain the density (n e ) and the volume-averaged path length (ℓ) of the ionized gas. We determine log ( n e ) = 2.0 − 0.7 + 1.0 cm−3 and log ( ℓ ) = − 0.7 − 1.1 + 1.1 pc toward the northeast (NE) lensed image, likely tracing the diffuse thermal phase of the ionized ISM in a thin disk. Toward the southwest (SW) lensed image, we determine log ( n e ) = 3.2 − 1.0 + 0.4 cm−3 and log ( ℓ ) = − 2.7 − 0.2 + 1.8 pc, tracing gas that is more reminiscent of H scii regions. We estimate a star formation (surface density) rate of ΣSFR ∼ 0.6 M ⊙ yr−1 kpc−2 or SFR ∼ 50 M ⊙ yr−1, consistent with a star-forming main-sequence galaxy of M ⋆ ∼ 1011 M ⊙. The discovery presented here opens up the possibility of studying ionized gas at high redshifts using RRL observations from current and future (e.g., SKA and ngVLA) radio facilities.
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| 3. |
- Wagenveld, Jonah D., et al.
(författare)
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The MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey: Homogeneous continuum catalogues towards a measurement of the cosmic radio dipole
- 2023
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 673
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The number counts of homogeneous samples of radio sources are a tried and true method of probing the large-scale structure of the Universe, as most radio sources outside the Galactic plane are at cosmological distances. As such, they are expected to trace the cosmic radio dipole, an anisotropy analogous to the dipole seen in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Results have shown that although the cosmic radio dipole matches the direction of the CMB dipole, it has a significantly larger amplitude. This unexplained result challenges our assumption of the Universe being isotropic, which can have large repercussions for the current cosmological paradigm. Though significant measurements have been made, sensitivity to the radio dipole is generally hampered by systematic effects that can cause large biases in the measurement. Here we assess these systematics with data from the MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS), a blind search for absorption lines with pointings centred on bright radio sources. With the sensitivity and field of view of MeerKAT, thousands of sources are observed in each pointing, allowing for the possibility of measuring the cosmic radio dipole given enough pointings. We present the analysis of ten MALS pointings, focusing on systematic effects that could lead to an inhomogeneous catalogue. We describe the calibration and creation of full band continuum images and catalogues, producing a combined catalogue containing 16 307 sources and covering 37.5 square degrees of sky down to a sensitivity of 10 μJy beam-1. We measure the completeness, purity, and flux recovery statistics for these catalogues using simulated data. We investigate different source populations in the catalogues by looking at flux densities and spectral indices and how they might influence source counts. Using the noise characteristics of the pointings, we find global measures that can be used to correct for the incompleteness of the catalogue, producing corrected number counts down to 100-200 μJy. We show that we can homogenise the catalogues and properly account for systematic effects. We determine that we can measure the dipole to 3significance with 100 MALS pointings.
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