Recent measurements of the temperature of the sky in the radio band, combined with literature data, have convincingly shown the existence of a cosmic radio background with an amplitude of $\sim 1$ K at 1 GHz and a spectral energy distribution that is well described by a power law with index $α\simeq -0.6$. The origin of this signal remains elusive, and it has been speculated that it could be dominated by the contribution of star-forming galaxies at high redshift \change{if the far infrared-radio correlation $q(z)$ evolved} in time. \change{We fit observational data from several different experiments by the relation $q(z) \simeq q_0 - β\log(1+z)$ with $q_0 = 2.783 \pm 0.024$ and $β= 0.705 \pm 0.081$ and estimate the total radio emission of the whole galaxy population at any given redshift from the cosmic star formation rate density at that redshift. It is found that} star-forming galaxies can only account for $\sim$13 percent of the observed intensity of the cosmic radio background.
We show that a recent purported correction to the effects of Doppler boosting of flux density in an erstwhile published formula for calculating the observer's motion from the cosmic radio dipole in sky brightness is erroneous. The thereby computed downward correction in the estimated magnitude for the observer's motion needs to be scrapped and the results derived therefore need to be reverted back to their erstwhile values.
ATLAS (Australia Telescope Large Area Survey) is a wide deep radio survey which is distinguished by its comprehensive multi-wavelength approach. ATLAS is creating a large dataset of radio-selected galaxies for studying the evolution and inter-relationship of star-forming and active galaxies. Although the project is far from complete, we are already starting to answer some of these questions, and have stumbled across three surprises along the way: * FRI/FRII radio-loud AGN embedded within spiral galaxies, * radio-bright AGN which are unexpectedly faint in the infrared, and which may be at high …
Constraints on the molecular gas content of galaxies at high redshift are crucial to further our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution through cosmic times, as molecular gas is the fuel for star formation. Since its initial detection at large cosmic distances almost two decades ago, studies of molecular gas in the early universe have come a long way. We have detected CO emission from >100 galaxies, covering a range of galaxy populations at z>1, reaching out to z>6, down to sub-kpc scale resolution, and spanning ~2 orders of magnitude in gas mass (aided by gravitational lensing).…
The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS), which is the widest deep field radio survey so far attempted, aims to probe the evolution of radio galaxies out to the edge of the Universe. Using AAOmega on the Anglo-Australian Telescope we have successfully obtained spectroscopic redshifts for 395 of the ATLAS radio galaxies. Coupled with 169 redshifts from the existing literature, we now have 564 spectroscopic redshifts for ATLAS sources.
We investigate the contribution that a local over- or under-density can have on linear cosmic dipole estimations. We focus here on radio surveys, such as the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), and forthcoming surveys such as those with the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The NVSS has already been used to estimate the cosmic radio dipole; it was shown recently that this radio dipole amplitude is larger than expected from a purely kinematic effect, assuming the velocity inferred from the dipole of the cosmic mic…
We present here a new spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting approach that we adopt to select radio-excess sources amongst distant star-forming galaxies in the GOODS-Herschel (North) field and to reveal the presence of hidden, highly obscured AGN. Through extensive SED analysis of 458 galaxies with radio 1.4 GHz and mid-IR 24 um detections using some of the deepest Chandra X-ray, Spitzer and Herschel infrared, and VLA radio data available to date, we have robustly identified a sample of 51 radio-excess AGN (~1300 deg^-2) out to redshift z~3. These radio-excess AGN have a significantly lowe…
Shocks and turbulence generated during large-scale structure formation are predicted to produce large-scale, low surface-brightness synchrotron emission. On the largest scales, this emission is globally correlated with the thermal baryon distribution, and constitutes the "Synchrotron Cosmic- Web". I present the observational prospects and challenges for detecting this faint emission with upcoming SKA pathfinders.
VLA 1.4 GHz (rms noise ~0.012 mJy) and MIPS 24 and 70 micron (rms noise ~0.02 and ~1.7 mJy, respectively) observations covering the 2 square degree COSMOS field are combined with an extensive multi-wavelength data set to study the evolution of the IR-radio relation at intermediate and high redshift. With ~4500 sources -- of which ~30% have spectroscopic redshifts -- the current sample is significantly larger than previous ones used for the same purpose. Both monochromatic IR/radio flux ratios (q24 & q70), as well as the ratio of the total IR and the 1.4 GHz luminosity (qTIR) are used as indica…
We produce the first low to mid frequency radio simulation that incorporates both traditional extragalactic radio sources as well as synchrotron cosmic web emission. The FIlaments \& GAlactic RadiO (FIGARO) simulation includes ten unique \SI{4x4}{\degree} fields, incorporating active galactic nucleii (AGNs), star forming galaxies (SFGs) and synchrotron cosmic web emission out to a redshift of $z = 0.8$ and over the frequency range 100-1400 MHz. To do this, the simulation brings together a recent $100^3$ Mpc$^3$ magneto-hydrodynamic simulation (Vazza et al., 2019), calibrated to match observed …
We use linear estimators to determine the magnitude and direction of the cosmic radio dipole from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) and the Westerbork Northern Sky Survey (WENSS). We show that special attention has to be given to the issues of bias due to shot noise, incomplete sky coverage and masking of the Milky Way. We compare several different estimators and show that conflicting claims in the literature can be attributed to the use of different estimators. We find that the NVSS and WENSS estimates of the cosmic radio dipole are consistent with each other and with the direction of the cosmic…
We revisit the idea that cosmic strings could source fast radio bursts by taking into account Lorentz boosts and a weaker assumption about the scaling law for the energy of particle decay. We show that the distance relation and time scale, for a specific value of the scaling of energy, are still compatible with observations. However, the event rate predicted by the model is too high when compared to the data. We additionally show that a more realistic string, with a finite thickness, further compounds the problem by prohibiting cusp formation and point out how a superconducting wiggly string c…
In Cygnus A and other classical FR II double radio sources, powerful opposing jets from the cores of halo-centered galaxies drive out into the surrounding cluster gas, forming hotspots of shocked and compressed cluster gas at the jet extremities. The moving hotspots are sandwiched between two shocks. An inner-facing shock receives momentum and cosmic rays from the jet and creates additional cosmic rays that form a radio lobe elongated along the jet axis. An outer-facing bow shock moves directly into the undisturbed group or cluster gas, creating a cocoon of shocked gas enclosing the radio lobe…
We study the prospects to measure the cosmic radio dipole by means of continuum surveys with the Square Kilometre Array. Such a measurement will allow a critical test of the cosmological principle. It will test whether the cosmic rest frame defined by the cosmic microwave background at photon decoupling agrees with the cosmic rest frame of matter at late times.
The origin of the extragalactic gamma-ray background is a pressing cosmological mystery. The Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has recently measured the intensity and spectrum of this background; both are substantially different from previous measurements. We present a novel calculation of the gamma-ray background from normal star-forming galaxies. Contrary to long-standing expectations, we find that numerous but individually faint normal galaxies may comprise the bulk of the Fermi signal, rather than rare but intrinsically bright active galaxies. This result has wide-ranging implications, inclu…
We discuss new constraints on the epoch of cosmic reionization and test the assumption that most of the ionizing photons responsible arose from high redshift star-forming galaxies. Good progress has been made in charting the end of reionization through spectroscopic studies of z~6-8 QSOs, gamma-ray bursts and galaxies expected to host Lyman-alpha emission. However, the most stringent constraints on its duration have come from the integrated optical depth, tau, of Thomson scattering to the cosmic microwave background. Using the latest data on the abundance and luminosity distribution of distant…
Despite their relative sparseness, during the recent years it has become more and more clear that extragalactic radio sources (both AGN and star-forming galaxies) constitute an extremely interesting mix of populations, not only because of their intrinsic value, but also for their fundamental role in shaping our Universe the way we see it today. Indeed, radio-active AGN are now thought to be the main players involved in the evolution of massive galaxies and clusters. At the same time, thanks to the possibility of being observed up to very high redshifts, radio galaxies can also provide crucial …
We present the clustering properties of a complete sample of 968 radio sources detected at 1.4 GHz by the VLA-COSMOS survey with radio fluxes brighter than 0.15 mJy. 92% have redshift determinations from the Laigle et al. (2016) catalogue. Based on their radio-luminosity, these objects have been divided into two populations of 644 AGN and 247 star-forming galaxies. By fixing the slope of the auto-correlation function to gamma=2, we find r_0=11.7^{+1.0}_{-1.1} Mpc for the clustering length of the whole sample, while r_0=11.2^{+2.5}_{-3.3} Mpc and r_0=7.8^{+1.6}_{-2.1} Mpc (r_0=6.8^{+1.4}_{-1.8}…
We study the challenges to detect the cosmic web at radio wavelengths with state-of-the-art cosmological simulations of extragalactic magnetic fields. The incoming generation of radio surveys operating at low frequency, like LOFAR, SKA-LOW and MWA will have the best chance to detect the large-scale, low surface brightness emission from the shocked cosmic web. The detected radio emission will enable to constrain the average magnetisation level of the gas in filaments and the acceleration efficiency of electrons by strong shocks. In case of detections, through statistical modelling (e.g. correla…
This lecture briefly reviews the major recent advances in radio astronomy made possible by ultra-deep surveys, reaching microJansky flux density levels. A giant step forward in many fields, including the study of the evolution of the cosmic star formation history is expected with the advent of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).
The study of diffuse radio sources is essential to our knowledge of the physical conditions in clusters of galaxies and of the role that large scale magnetic fields play in the propagation of the relativistic particles in the intracluster medium (ICM). Due to dissipative processes, the thermal plasma of the ICM contains useless information about the formation of structures and CRs. Such past and current information is carried intact by its non-thermal emission caused by highly relativistic particles spiraling in large-scale magnetic fields. The diffuse radio emission is not associated with the…
Star-forming galaxies in the cosmic web in the last 11 Gyr
Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, UMR 7550, CNRS, Université de Strasbourg（斯特拉斯堡天文台）；Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学天体物理研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of the Western Cape（西开普大学物理与天文学系）
Fermi has resolved several star-forming galaxies, but the vast majority of the star-forming universe is unresolved and thus contributes to the extragalactic gamma ray background (EGB). Here, we calculate the contribution from star-forming galaxies to the EGB in the Fermi range from 100 MeV to 100 GeV, due to inverse-Compton (IC) scattering of the interstellar photon field by cosmic-ray electrons. We first construct a one-zone model for a single star-forming galaxy, assuming supernovae power the acceleration of cosmic rays. The same IC interactions leading to gamma rays also substantially contr…
We propose that the periodic fast radio bursts of FRB 180916.J0158+65 are sourced by axion emission (mass $m_{a} \sim 10^{-14}$ eV) from cosmic superstrings. Some of the emitted axions are converted to photons by magnetic fields as they travel along the line of sight to Earth. An impulsive burst of axion emission generates a photon signal typically lasting for milliseconds and varying with frequency in the observed manner. We find a range of parameters in our cosmic string network model consistent with the properties of FRB 180916.J0158+65. We suggest followup gravitational wave observations t…
The origin of the diffuse extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB) has been intensively studied but remains unsettled. Current popular source candidates include unresolved star-forming galaxies, starburst galaxies, and blazars. In this paper we calculate the EGB contribution from the interactions of cosmic rays accelerated by Type Ia supernovae (SNe), extending earlier work which only included core-collapse SNe. We consider Type Ia events in star-forming galaxies, but also in quiescent galaxies that lack star formation. For star-forming galaxies, consistently including Type Ia events makes lit…
While star-forming galaxies could be major contributors to the cosmic GeV $γ$-ray background, they are expected to be MeV-dim because of the "pion bump" falling off below ~100 MeV. However, there are very few observations of galaxies in the MeV range, and other emission processes could be present. We investigate the MeV background from star-forming galaxies by running one-zone models of cosmic ray populations, including Inverse Compton and bremsstrahlung, as well as nuclear lines (including $^{26}$Al), emission from core-collapse supernovae, and positron annihilation emission, in addition to t…
Neutrino production of radio Cherenkov signals in the Moon is the object of radio telescope observations. Depending on the energy range and detection parameters, the dominant contribution to the neutrino signal may come from interactions of the neutrino on the Moon facing the telescope, rather than neutrinos that have traversed a portion of the Moon. Using the approximate analytic expression of the effective lunar aperture from a recent paper by Gayley, Mutel and Jaeger, we evaluate the background from cosmic ray interactions in the lunar regolith. We also consider the modifications to the eff…
We search for extended regions of radio emission not associated with Active Galactic Nuclei, known as 'relics', 'halos' and 'mini halo's, in a sample of 70 Abell clusters for which we have radio, optical and X-ray data. AGN can produce particle bubbles of non-thermal emission, which can restrict cosmic rays. Hence radio relics and (mini) halos could be forming as a result of the confinement of cosmic rays by these bubbles. We are probing the role that intracluster mag- netic fields (using Faraday rotation measure and inverse compton arguments), mergers (through radio/X-ray interactions), cooli…
Weak shocks in the intracluster medium may accelerate cosmic-ray protons and cosmic-ray electrons differently depending on the angle between the upstream magnetic field and the shock normal. In this work, we investigate how shock obliquity affects the production of cosmic rays in high-resolution simulations of galaxy clusters. For this purpose, we performed a magneto-hydrodynamical simulation of a galaxy cluster using the mesh refinement code \enzo. We use Lagrangian tracers to follow the properties of the thermal gas, the cosmic rays and the magnetic fields over time. We tested a number of di…
We investigate conditions for and consequences of spallation in radio-quiet Seyfert galaxies. The work is motivated by the recent discovery of significant line emission at 5.44 keV in Suzaku data from NGC 4051. The energy of the new line suggests an identification as Cr I Ka emission, however the line is much stronger than would be expected from material with cosmic abundances, leading to a suggestion of enhancement owing to nuclear spallation of Fe by low energy cosmic rays from the active nucleus. We find that the highest abundance enhancements are likely to take place in gas out of the plan…
The detection of the radio signal from filaments in the cosmic web is crucial to distinguish possible magnetogenesis scenarios. We review the status of the different attempts to detect the cosmic web at radio wavelengths. This is put into the context of the advanced simulations of cosmic magnetism carried out in the last few years by our {\magcow} project. While first attempts of imaging the cosmic web with the MWA and LOFAR have been encouraging and could discard some magnetogenesis models, the complexity behind such observations makes a definitive answer still uncertain. A combination of tot…
It has recently become apparent that the background level of diffuse radio emission on the sky is significantly higher than the level that can result from known extragalactic radio source classes or our Galaxy given our current understanding of its large-scale structure.~ In contrast to the more well-known and well-constrained cosmological and astrophysical backgrounds at microwave, infrared, optical/UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths, this ``radio synchrotron background'' at radio wavelengths provides clear motivation for considering the possibilities of new astrophysical sources and new pa…
A faint new radio source has been detected in the nuclear region of the starburst galaxy M82 using MERLIN radio observations designed to monitor the flux density evolution of the recent bright supernova SN2008iz. This new source was initially identified in observations made between 1-5th May 2009 but had not been present in observations made one week earlier, or in any previous observations of M82. In this paper we report the discovery of this new source and monitoring of its evolution over its first 9 months of existence. The true nature of this new source remains unclear, and we discuss whet…
Askaryan Radio Array (ARA), a large-scale radio Cherenkov observatory which scientists propose to develop in Antarctica, aims at discovering the origin and evolution of the cosmic accelerators that produce the highest energy cosmic rays by means of observing the ultra high energy (UHE) cosmogenic neutrinos. To optimize ARA's angular resolution of the incoming UHE neutrinos, which is essential for pointing pack to its source, the relation between the reconstruction capabilities of ARA and its design is studied. It is found that with the noise effect taken into account, in order to make this neu…
We study the radio - far-infrared (FIR) correlation in a sample of faint dwarf irregular galaxies using NVSS data for 1.4 GHz radio flux, Spitzer MIPS 70 um data for FIR flux, and GALEX FUV data to estimate the star formation rates (SFR). Since our target galaxies are extremely faint, we stack images of many galaxies together to estimate the average radio and FIR fluxes. We find that for a given SFR both 70 um and 1.4 GHz fluxes are low compared to the calibration for large spirals. Nonetheless, the ratio of 70 um to 1.4 GHz flux agrees within errorbars with that seen for large galaxies. The r…
An extinction-free estimator of the star-formation rate (SFR) of galaxies is critical for understanding the high-redshift universe. To this end, the nearly linear, tight correlation of far-infrared (FIR) and radio luminosity of star-forming galaxies is widely used. While the FIR is linked to massive star formation, which also generates shock-accelerated cosmic ray (CR) electrons and radio synchrotron emission, a detailed understanding of the underlying physics is still lacking. Hence, we perform three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamical (MHD) simulations of isolated galaxies over a broad range …
In star-forming galaxies, the far-infrared (FIR) and radio-continuum luminosities obey a tight empirical relation over a large range of star-formation rates (SFR). We examine magneto-hydrodynamic galaxy simulations with cosmic rays (CRs), accounting for their advective and anisotropic diffusive transport. We show that gravitational collapse of the proto-galaxy generates a corrugated accretion shock, which injects turbulence and drives a small-scale magnetic dynamo. As the shock propagates outwards and the associated turbulence decays, the large velocity shear between the supersonically rotatin…
Diffuse, non-thermal extended emission not associated with the AGN phenomenon, found in many clusters of galaxies hosted by an AGN, are related to the acceleration of cosmic rays. In the current work we present preliminary evidence of absence of such formations in clusters of galaxies hosted by optically identified cD galaxies. Our subsample consists of three powerful low redshift radiogalaxies, centered in poor clusters of galaxies. We have searched for radio relics and (mini)halos which could be forming as a result of the confinement of cosmic rays by bubbles creayed by the AGN. We report on…
We probe the role that the directional asymmetry, between relativistic outflows and kilo-parsec scale jets, play in the acceleration of cosmic rays. For this reason we use two powerful, nearby Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). These radio galaxies are atypical compared to the usual AGN as they contain ring-like features instead of hotspots. Our VLBI radio data have revealed a substantial misalignment between their small and large scale jets. Taking into account the overall information we have obtained about the AGNs themselves (VLA and VLBI radio data at 18 cm) and their clusters (X-ray observati…
We explore the possibility that Fast Radio Bursts are due to the annihilation of cusps on cosmic string loops. We compute the energy released in the annihilation events in the radio region, the expected event rate, and the time scale of the bursts. We find that the energy and event rates are sufficiently high and the time scale is sufficiently small to explain the current data. We predict how the event rate will change as the resolution of telescopes improves. Since the burst rate depends on the string tension, future data will allow the determination of the tension.
