本工作代表物理学与天体物理学学士学位的最后一年项目，主要聚焦于对斯隆数字巡天（SDSS）和英国红外望远镜（UKIRT）红外深空巡天（UKIDSS）系统中类星体测光的实证研究。研究包括从两个巡天中匹配得到的5730个类星体，并考察该群体的紫外/光学/近红外特性。样本覆盖红移和绝对星等范围0.01 < z < 3和-29.3 < M_i < -13.8，且17%的SDSS类星体成功匹配到UKIDSS数据。将SDSS的ugriz与UKIDSS的JHK近红外测光在大面积天空中结合，对于推进我们对类星体群体的理解具有巨大潜力，同时需注意这些巡天尚未结束。
英文摘要：
This work represents the final year project for BSc Physics with Astrophysics degree and it mainly focuses on empirical investigation of the photometry of quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) Infrared Sky Survey (UKIDSS) systems. The studies include 5730 quasars matched from both surveys and examine UV/optical/near-IR properties of the population. The sample covers the redshift and absolute magnitude ranges 0.01 < z < 3 and -29.3 < M i < -13.8 and 17 per cent of the SDSS quasars have matching success to the UKIDSS data. The combination of SDSS ugriz with the JHK near-IR photometry from UKIDSS over large areas of the sky has enormous potential for advancing our understanding of quasar population, keeping in mind that these surveys have not reached their terminations.
Small and intermediate mass black holes should be expected in galactic nuclei as a result of stellar evolution, minor mergers and gravitational dynamical friction. If these minor black holes accrete as X-ray binaries or ultra-luminous X-ray sources, and are associated with star formation, they could account for observations of many low luminosity AGN or LINERs. Accreting and inspiralling intermediate mass black holes could provide a crucial electromagnetic counterpart to strong gravitational wave signatures, allowing tests of strong gravity. Here we discuss observational signatures of minor bl…
We analyse the motion of single optically thick clouds in the potential of a central mass under the influence of an anisotropic radiation field ~|cos(θ)|, a model applicable to the inner region of active galactic nuclei. Resulting orbits are analytically soluble for constant cloud column densities. All stable orbits are closed, although they have non-trivial shapes. Furthermore, there exists a stability criterion in the form of a critical inclination, which depends on the luminosity of the central source and the column density of the cloud.
Apart from viewing-dependent obscuration, intrinsic broad-line emission from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) follows an evolutionary sequence: Type $1 \to 1.2/1.5 \to 1.8/1.9 \to 2$ as the accretion rate onto the central black hole is decreasing. This spectral evolution is controlled, at least in part, by the parameter $L_{\rm bol}/M^{2/3}$, where $L_{\rm bol}$ is the AGN bolometric luminosity and $M$ is the black hole mass. Both this dependence and the double-peaked profiles that emerge along the sequence arise naturally in the disk-wind scenario for the AGN broad-line region.
Spectropolarimetric efforts in the last few years have provided an efficient method that is based on the profiles of the polarization plane position angle of broad emission lines in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Here we present black hole measurements of SBS 1419+538 using spectropolarimetric observations in the Mg II spectral band. The observations are performed by 6m telescope of SAO RAS using SCORPIO-2. We found a good agreement for the estimated supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass for this object using spectropolarimetry when compared with the mass obtained using other methods.
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) have been found to be ubiquitous in the nuclei of early-type galaxies and of bulges of spirals. There are evidences of a tight correlation between the SMBH masses, the velocity dispersions of stars in the spheroidal components galaxies and other galaxy properties. Also the evolution of the luminosity density due to nuclear activity is similar to that due to star formation. All that suggests an evolutionary connection between Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and their host galaxies. After a review of these evidences this lecture discusses how AGNs can affect the ho…
Different mechanisms can drive outflows in active galactic nuclei (AGN), but it is often unclear which mechanism dominates, if any. To quantify the impact of AGN feedback on galaxy evolution, the driving mechanism of outflows must be better understood.
We present the results of our spectropolarimetric observations for a number of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) carried out at the 6-m telescope with the SCORPIO focal reducer. The derived wavelength dependences of the polarization have been analyzed by taking into account the Faraday rotation of the polarization plane on the photon mean free path in a magnetized accretion disk. As a result, based on traditional accretion disk models, we have determined the magnetic field strength and distribution and a number of physical parameters of the accreting plasma in the region where the optical radiatio…
Dual active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and offset AGNs are kpc-scale separation supermassive black holes pairs created during galaxy mergers, where both or one of the black holes are AGNs, respectively. These dual and offset AGNs are valuable probes of the link between mergers and AGNs but are challenging to identify. Here we present Chandra/ACIS observations of 12 optically-selected dual AGN candidates at z < 0.34, where we use the X-rays to identify AGNs. We also present HST/WFC3 observations of 10 of these candidates, which reveal any stellar bulges accompanying the AGNs. We discover a dual AGN…
We briefly review the synergy between X-ray and infrared observations for Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) detected in cosmic X-ray surveys, primarily with XMM-Newton, Chandra, and NuSTAR. We focus on two complementary aspects of this X-ray-infrared synergy (1) the identification of the most heavily obscured AGNs and (2) the connection between star formation and AGN activity. We also briefly discuss future prospects for X-ray-infrared studies over the next decade.
Understanding our Galactic Center is easier with insights from nearby galactic nuclei. Both the star formation activity in nuclear gas disks, driven by bars and nuclear bars, and the fueling of low-luminosity AGN, followed by feedback of jets, driving molecular outflows, were certainly present in our Galactic Center, which now appears to be quenched. Comparisons and diagnostics are reviewed, in particular of m=2 and m=1 modes, lopsidedness, different disk orientations, and fossil evidences of activity and feedback.
The dynamics of galactic nuclei can be affected by several mechanisms. Among these are stellar evolution, stellar collisions, mass segregation, and tidal disruptions of stars due to the central black hole. In this presentation I will address how each of these affects the stellar cusp and the resulting observational signatures. Using a set of dynamically evolving Fokker-Planck simulations I present the dynamical evolution a nuclear stellar cluster and the growth of the central massive black hole within the Galactic Nucleus. In addition to the Galactic Center I explore a wide variety of galactic…
Based on SDSS data, we consider the fraction of active galactic nuclei among polar-ring galaxies. We have found evidence for an excess of Seyfert galaxies and LINERs among polar-ring galaxies compared to ordinary objects. The observed nuclear activity of polar-ring galaxies may be associated with the accretion of gas from the region of the polar structures onto the central galaxies.
We present a series of $N$-body simulations representing the evolution of a galactic nucleus and its stellar content in a nearly one-to-one representation. The aim of this suite of simulations is to shed light on the interplay between nuclear clusters (NCs), super-massive black holes (SMBH) and the galactic nuclei in which they are contained. We modelled galaxies with masses from few times $10^8$ to $10^{11}$ M$_\odot$, hosting in their nucleus a number of globular clusters and, in some cases, a central SMBH.
Supermassive black holes dominate the gravitational potential in galactic nuclei. In these dense environments, stars follow nearly Keplerian orbits and see their orbital planes relax through the potential fluctuations generated by the stellar cluster itself. For typical astrophysical galactic nuclei, the most likely outcome of this vector resonant relaxation (VRR) is that the orbital planes of the most massive stars spontaneously self-align within a narrow disc. We present a maximum entropy method to systematically determine this long-term distribution of orientations and use it for a wide ran…
Weak emission-line active galactic nuclei (WLAGNs) are radio-quiet active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that have nearly featureless optical spectra. We investigate the ultraviolet to mid-infrared spectral energy distributions of 73 WLAGNs (0.4<z<3) and find that most of them are similar to normal AGNs. We also calculate the covering factor of warm dust of these 73 WLAGNs. No significant difference is indicated by a KS test between the covering factor of WLAGNs and normal AGNs in the common range of bolometric luminosity. The implication for several models of WLAGNs is discussed. The super-Eddington …
The first part of this article is a historical and physical introduction to quasars and their close cousins, called Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). In the second part, I argue that our progress in understanding them has been unsatisfactory and in fact somewhat illusory since their discovery fifty years ago, and that much of the reason is a pervasive lack of critical thinking in the research community. It would be very surprising if other fields do not suffer similar failings.
Over three quarters in 2010-2011, Kepler monitored optical emission from four active galactic nuclei (AGN) with ~30 min sampling, >90% duty cycle, and <~0.1% repeatability. These data determined the AGN optical fluctuation power spectral density functions (PSDs) over a wide range in temporal frequency. Fits to these PSDs yielded power law slopes of -2.6 to -3.3, much steeper than typically seen in the X-rays. We find evidence that individual AGN exhibit intrinsically different PSD slopes. The steep PSD fits are a challenge to recent AGN variability models but seem consistent with first order M…
Recently a new method to discover obscured active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by utilizing X-ray and Infrared data has been developed. We carried out a survey of H2O maser emission toward ten obscured AGNs with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. We newly detected the maser emission with the signal-noise-ratio (SNR) of above 4 from two AGNs, NGC 1402 and NGC 7738. We also found a tentative detection with its SNR > 3 in NGC 5037. The detection rate of 20% is higher than those of previous surveys (usually several percents).
The luminosity of [C II] is used to probe the star formation rate in galaxies, but the correlation breaks down in some active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Models of the [C II] emission from galactic nuclei do not include the influence of X-rays on the carbon ionization balance, which may be a factor in reducing the [C II] luminosity. We calculate the [C II] luminosity in galactic nuclei under the influence of bright sources of X-rays. We solve the balance equation of the ionization states of carbon as a function of X-ray flux, electron, atomic hydrogen, and molecular hydrogen density. These are inp…
The Nuker profile, characterised by an inner and outer power-law profile smoothly merged around a break radius, is a very popular model to describe the surface brightness profile of galactic nuclei. A disadvantage of this model for dynamical studies is that the spatial density distribution that corresponds to this surface brightness profile cannot be written in terms of elementary or regular special functions. We derive a compact and elegant analytical expression for the density of the Nuker model, based the Mellin integral transform method. We use this expression to discuss the general behavi…
We consider the problem of star consumption by supermassive black holes in non-spherical (axisymmetric, triaxial) galactic nuclei. We review the previous studies of the loss-cone problem and present a novel simulation method which allows to separate out the collisional (relaxation-related) and collisionless (related to non-conservation of angular momentum) processes and determine their relative importance for the capture rates in different geometries. We show that for black holes more massive than 10^7 Msun, the enhancement of capture rate in non-spherical galaxies is substantial, with even mo…
It has been recently proposed that the broad line region in active galactic nuclei originates from dusty clouds driven from the accretion disk by radiation pressure, at a distance from the black hole where the disk is cooler than the dust sublimation temperature. We test this scenario by checking the consistency of independent broad line region and accretion disk reverberation measurements, for a sample of 11 well studied active galactic nuclei. We show that independent disk and broad line region reverberation mapping measurements are compatible with a universal disk temperature at the Hβ radi…
Galaxy nuclei are a unique laboratory to study gas flows. High-resolution imaging of the gas flows in galactic nuclei are instrumental in the study of the fueling and the feedback of star formation and nuclear activity in nearby galaxies. Several fueling mechanisms can be now confronted in detail with observations done with state-of-the-art interferometers. Furthermore, the study of gas flows in galactic nuclei can probe the feedback of activity on the interstellar medium of galaxies. Feedback action from star formation and AGN activity is invoked to prevent galaxies from becoming overly massi…
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are traditionally divided empirically into two main classes: "radio-loud" and "radio-quiet" sources. These labels, which are more than fifty years old, are obsolete, misleading, and wrong. I argue that AGN should be classified based on a fundamentally physical rather than just an observational difference, namely the presence (or lack) of strong relativistic jets, and that we should use the terms "jetted" and "non-jetted" AGN instead.
We investigate the formation of circumnuclear gas structures from the tidal disruption of molecular clouds in galactic nuclei, by means of smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We model galactic nuclei as composed of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) and a nuclear star cluster (NSC) and consider different mass ratios between the two components. We find that the relative masses of the SMBH and the NSC have a deep impact on the morphology of the circumnuclear gas. Extended disks form only inside the sphere of influence of the SMBH. In contrast, compact rings naturally form outside the SMBH…
Bright Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of mass onto the super massive black holes at the centers of the host galaxies. For fainter objects star formation may significantly contribute to the luminosity. We summarize experimental indicators of the accretion processes in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), i.e., observable activity indicators that allow us to conclude on the nature of accretion. The Galactic Center is the closest galactic nucleus that can be studied with unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity. Therefore, here we also include the presentation of recent observat…
We review the properties of the established Scaling Relations (SRs) of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN), focusing on their origin and expected evolution back in time, providing a short history of the most important progresses obtained up to now and discussing the possible future studies. We also try to connect the observed SRs with the physical mechanisms behind them, examining to what extent current models reproduce the observational data. The emerging picture clarifies the complexity intrinsic to the galaxy formation and evolution process as well as the basic uncertainties still aff…
Due to the compactness active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are still unresolved with optical observations. However, structure and physical conditions of the matter in their central parts are especially important to study the processes of the matter accretion to supermassive black holes and eventually these investigations are essential to understand the galaxy evolution. Polarization contains information about the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the environment and provides information about the physical processes in the central regions of the AGNs that could not be found with the help of o…
We present the results of long-term photometric monitoring of two active galactic nuclei, 2MASX J08535955+7700543 (z $\sim$ 0.106) and VII Zw 244 (z $\sim$ 0.131), being investigated by the reverberation mapping method in medium-band filters. To estimate the size of the broad line region, we have analyzed the light curves with the JAVELIN code. The emission line widths have been measured using the spectroscopic data obtained at the 6-m BTA telescope of SAO RAS. We give our estimates of the supermassive black hole masses $\lg (M/M_{\odot})$, $7.398_{-0.171}^{+0.153}$, and $7.049_{-0.075}^{+0.06…
Observed extinction curves of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are significantly different from those observed in the Milky Way. The observations require preferential removal of small grains at the AGN environment; however, the physics for this remains unclear. In this paper, we propose that dust destruction by charging, or Coulomb explosion, may be responsible for AGN extinction curves. Harsh AGN radiation makes a dust grain highly charged through photoelectric emission, and grain fission via the Coulomb explosion occurs when the electrostatic tensile stress of a charge grain exceeds its tensile…
X-ray and mid-infrared emission are signposts of the accretion of matter onto the supermassive black holes that reside at the centres of most galaxies. As a major step towards understanding accreting supermassive black holes and their role in the evolution of galaxies, we will use the 4MOST multi-object spectrograph to provide a highly complete census of active galactic nuclei over a large fraction of the extragalactic sky observed in X-rays by eROSITA that is visible to 4MOST. We will systematically follow up all eROSITA point-like extragalactic X-ray sources (mostly active galactic nuclei), …
Gravitational-wave (GW) and gravitational slingshot recoil kicks, which are natural products of SMBH evolution in merging galaxies, can produce active galactic "nuclei" that are offset from the centers of their host galaxies. Detections of offset AGN would provide key constraints on SMBH binary mass and spin evolution and on GW event rates. Although numerous offset AGN candidates have been identified, none have been definitively confirmed. The ngVLA offers unparalleled capabilities to identify and confirm candidate offset AGN from sub-parsec to kiloparsec scales, opening a new avenue for multi…
We predict the observational signatures of galaxy scale outflows powered by active galactic nuclei (AGN). Most of the emission is produced by the forward shock driven into the ambient interstellar medium (ISM) rather than by the reverse shock. AGN powered galactic winds with energetics suggested by phenomenological feedback arguments should produce spatially extended 1-10 keV X-ray emission of 10^(41-44) erg/s, significantly in excess of the spatially extended X-ray emission associated with normal star forming galaxies. The presence of such emission is a direct test of whether AGN outflows sig…
Galactic nuclei harbouring a central supermassive black hole (SMBH), possibly surrounded by a dense nuclear cluster (NC), represent extreme environments which house a complex interplay of many physical processes that uniquely affect stellar formation, evolution, and dynamics. The discovery of gravitational waves (GW) emitted by merging black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs), funnelled a huge amount of work focused on understanding how compact object binaries (COBs) can pair-up and merge together. Here, we review from a theoretical standpoint how different mechanisms concur to the formation,…
High-density cusps of compact remnants are expected to form around supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei via dynamical friction and two-body relaxation. Due to the high density, binaries in orbit around the SMBH can frequently undergo close encounters with compact remnants from the cusp. This can affect the gravitational wave merger rate of compact binaries in galactic nuclei. We investigated this process by means of high accuracy few-body simulations, performed with a novel Monte Carlo approach. We find that, around a SgrA*-like SMBH, three-body encounters increase the number of…
Radio-loud sources with blazar-like properties, but having a jet that does not directly point in the direction of the observer are among the most interesting classes of gamma-ray emitters. These sources are known as Misaligned Active Galactic Nuclei (MAGN). Understanding MAGN properties is useful to improve the knowledge of blazar energetics. We searched for new MAGN candidates among the remaining blazars of uncertain type detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) using a methodology based on characterizing their radio morphology. We identified seven new candidates associated with gamma…
We suggest a mechanism for the amplification of high-velocity water-vapor maser emission features from the central regions of active galactic nuclei. The model of an emitting accretion disk is considered. The high-velocity emission features originate in the right and left wings of the Keplerian disk. The hyperfine splitting of the signal levels leads to an asymmetry in the spectral profile of the water vapor maser line at a frequency of 22.235 GHz. We show that the gain profile asymmetry must lead to an enhanced brightness of the blueshifted high-velocity emission features compared to the reds…
Radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs) in low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs) have been suggested as cosmic-ray and neutrino sources that may largely contribute to the observed diffuse neutrino intensity. We show that this scenario naturally predicts hadronic multi-TeV gamma-ray excesses around Galactic centers. The protons accelerated in the RIAF in Sagittarius A$^*$ (Sgr A$^*$) escape and interact with dense molecular gas surrounding Sgr A$^*$, which is known as the central molecular zone (CMZ), and produce gamma rays as well as neutrinos. Based on a theoretical model tha…
We study the influence of the centrifugally driven curvature drift instability (CDI) on the dynamics of relativistic electrons in the magnetospheres of active galactic nuclei (AGN). We generalize our previous work by considering relativistic particles with different initial phases. Considering the Euler, continuity, and induction equations, by taking into account the resonant conditions, we derive the growth rate of the CDI. We show that due to the centrifugal effects, the rotational energy is efficiently pumped directly into the drift modes, that leads to the generation of a toroidal componen…
The direction of parsec-scale jets in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is essential information for many astrophysical and astrometric studies, including linear polarization and magnetic field structure, frequency-dependent synchrotron opacity, proper motion, and reference frame alignment. We developed a rigorous, simple, and completely automated method to measure the directions from calibrated interferometric visibility data at frequencies ranging from 1.4 GHz to 86 GHz. We publish the results for 9220 AGNs with the typical accuracy below 10 degrees. An internal check of the method comparing the…
The Interferometric Monitoring of Gamma-ray Bright Active galactic nuclei (iMOGABA) program provides not only simultaneous multifrequency observations of bright gamma-ray detected active galactic nuclei (AGN), but also covers the highest Very Large Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) frequencies ever being systematically monitored, up to 129 GHz. However, observation and imaging of weak sources at the highest observed frequencies is very challenging. In the second paper in this series, we evaluate the viability of the frequency phase transfer technique to iMOGABA in order to obtain larger coherence…
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, found direct evidence for double black hole binaries emitting gravitational waves. Galactic nuclei are expected to harbor the densest population of stellar-mass black holes. A significant fraction ($\sim30\%$) of these black holes can reside in binaries. We examine the fate of the black hole binaries in active galactic nuclei, which get trapped in the inner region of the accretion disk around the central supermassive black hole. We show that binary black holes can migrate into and then rapidly merge within the disk well within a Sa…
