Quasar–galaxy associations revisited

Gravitational lensing predicts an enhancement of the density of bright, distant quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) around foreground galaxies. We measure this QSO–galaxy correlation w _qg for two complete samples of radio-loud quasars, the southern 1 Jy and half-Jansky samples. The existence of a positive correlation between     quasars and     galaxies is confirmed at a     per cent significance level (>99.9 per cent if previous measurements on the northern hemisphere are included). A comparison with the results obtained for incomplete quasar catalogues (e.g. the Veron-Cetty and Veron compilation) suggests the existence of an 'identification bias', which spuriously increases the estimated amplitude of w _qg for incomplete samples. This effect may explain many of the surprisingly strong quasar–galaxy associations found in the literature. Nevertheless, the value of w _qg that we measure in our complete catalogues is still considerably higher than the predictions from weak lensing. We consider two effects which could help to explain this discrepancy: galactic dust extinction and strong lensing.     

Gravitational lensing in eclipsing binary stars

I consider the effect of the gravitational deflection of light upon the light curves of eclipsing binary stars, focusing mainly upon systems containing at least one white dwarf component. In absolute terms the effects are small, however they are strongest at the time of secondary eclipse when the white dwarf transits its companion, and act to reduce the depth of this feature. If not accounted for, this may lead to under-estimation of the radius of the white dwarf compared with that of its companion. I show that the effect is significant for plausible binary parameters, and that it leads to ∼25 per cent reduction in the transit depth in the system KPD 1930+2752. The reduction of eclipse depth is degenerate with the stellar radius ratio, and therefore cannot be used to establish the existence of lensing. A second-order effect of the light bending is to steepen the ingress and egress features of the secondary eclipse relative to the primary eclipse, although it will be difficult to see this in practice. I consider also binaries containing neutron stars and black holes. I conclude that, although relatively large effects are possible in such systems, a combination of rarity, faintness and intrinsic variability makes it unlikely that lensing will be detectable in them.     

Evidence for accretion disc reprocessing in QSO 0957+561

We use archival g - and r -band photometry of the gravitational lens system QSO 0957+561A, B to estimate the intrinsic variability of the quasar during 1996 February–June. The light curves span 234 d with temporal resolutions of about 2.5 d. Both light curves display a single large-amplitude event, of ∼0.1 mag (max-to-min) in about 100 d, followed by small-amplitude variations of ∼0.02 mag on time-scales of tens of days. We find the r -band variations lag those at g by 3.4_−1.4^+1.5 d for the large-amplitude event. This lag is greater than zero at no less than 98 per cent confidence. The delayed coupling of the rest-frame UV intrinsic variations strongly suggests the existence of a stratified reprocessing region extending ∼light-days from the putative central black hole source. The observed lag is consistent with that expected from a reverberation within an irradiated accretion disc structure. However, any definitive statement requires further detailed theoretical modelling and high-quality, signal-to-noise ratio of about 100, optical/IR simultaneous monitoring with about 3-d resolution for approximately 6 months.     

Newtonian hydrodynamics of the coalescence of black holes with neutron stars – IV. Irrotational binaries with a soft equation of state

We present the results of three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the final stages of in-spiral in a black hole–neutron star binary, when the separation is comparable to the stellar radius. We use a Newtonian smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code to model the evolution of the system, and take the neutron star to be a polytrope with a soft (adiabatic indices     and     equation of state and the black hole to be a Newtonian point mass. The only non-Newtonian effect we include is a gravitational radiation back reaction force, computed in the quadrupole approximation for point masses. We use irrotational binaries as initial conditions for our dynamical simulations, which are begun when the system is on the verge of initiating mass transfer and followed for approximately 23 ms. For all the cases studied we find that the star is disrupted on a dynamical time-scale, and forms a massive     accretion torus around the spinning (Kerr) black hole. The rotation axis is clear of baryons (less than 10⁻⁵ M_⊙ within 10°) to an extent that would not preclude the formation of a relativistic fireball capable of powering a cosmological gamma-ray burst. Some mass (the specific amount is sensitive to the stiffness of the equation of state) may be dynamically ejected from the system during the coalescence and could undergo r-process nucleosynthesis. We calculate the waveforms, luminosities and energy spectra of the gravitational radiation signal, and show how they reflect the global outcome of the coalescence process.     

Low-frequency gravitational waves from cosmological compact binaries

We consider gravitational waves emitted by various populations of compact binaries at cosmological distances. We use population synthesis models to characterize the properties of double neutron stars, double black holes and double white dwarf binaries, and white dwarf–neutron star, white dwarf–black hole and black hole–neutron star systems.
We use the observationally determined cosmic star formation history to reconstruct the redshift distribution of these sources and their merging rate evolution.
The gravitational signals emitted by each source during its early spiralling in phase add randomly to produce a stochastic background in the low-frequency band with spectral strain amplitude between ~10⁻¹⁸ and ~5×10⁻¹⁷ Hz^−1/2 at frequencies in the interval ~5×10⁻⁶–5×10⁻⁵ Hz.
The overall signal, which at frequencies above 10⁻⁴ Hz is largely dominated by double white dwarf systems, might be detectable with LISA in the frequency range 1–10 mHz and acts like a confusion-limited noise component, which might limit the LISA sensitivity at frequencies above 1 mHz.     

Five nights of intensive R- and V-band photometry of QSO 0957+561A,B

We present R - and V -band photometry of the gravitational lens system QSO 0957+561 from five nights (one in 2000 January and four in 2001 March, corresponding to the approximate time delay for the system) of uninterrupted monitoring at the Nordic Optical Telescope. In the photometry scheme we have stressed careful magnitude calibration as well as corrections for the lens galaxy contamination and the crosstalk between the twin (A and B) quasar images. The resulting, very densely sampled, light curves are quite stable, in conflict with earlier claims derived from the same data material. We estimate high-precision timelag-corrected B/A flux ratios in both colour bands, as well as V – R colour indices for A and B, and discuss the short time-scale variability of the system.