Gravitationally distorted P Cygni profiles from outflows near compact objects

We consider resonant absorption in a spectral line in the outflowing plasma within several tens of Schwarzschild radii from a compact object. We take into account both Doppler and gravitational shifting effects and reformulate the theory of P Cygni profiles in these new circumstances. It is found that a spectral line may have multiple absorption and emission components depending on how far the region of interaction is from the compact object and what the distribution of velocity and opacity is. Profiles of spectral lines produced near a neutron star or a black hole can be strongly distorted by Doppler blue- or redshifting and gravitational redshifting. These profiles may have both red- and blueshifted absorption troughs. The result should be contrasted with classical P Cygni profiles, which consist of redshifted emission and blueshifted absorption features.
We suggest that this property of line profiles to have complicated narrow absorption and emission components in the presence of strong gravity may help researchers to study spectroscopically the innermost parts of an outflow.     

Determination of the intrinsic velocity field in the M87 jet

A new method to estimate the Doppler beaming factor of relativistic large-scale jet regions is presented. It is based on multiwaveband fitting to radio-to-X-ray continua with synchrotron spectrum models. Combining our method with available observational data of proper motions, we derive the intrinsic velocity as well as the viewing angles to the line of sight for eight knotty regions down the M87 jet. The results favour the 'modest beaming' scenario along the jet, with Doppler factors varying between  ∼2–5  . The inner jet of M87 suffers sharp deceleration, and the intrinsic speed remains roughly constant down the outer jet. The orientation of the inner jet regions is fully consistent with the result of 10°–19° to the line of sight suggested by previous Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) proper motion studies of the M87 jet. The outer jet, however, shows systematic deflection off the inner jet to a much smaller inclination  (θ≪ 10°)  . Further calculation of knot A suggests that this deflection can be regarded as evidence that the outer jet suffers some departure from equipartition. The nucleus region of the M87 jet should have a viewing angle close to its first knot HST-1, i.e.  θ∼ 15°  , which favours the idea that M87 may be a misaligned blazar. This work provides some hints about the overall dynamics of this famous extragalactic jet.     

Evidence for recent star formation in BCGs: a correspondence between blue cores and UV excess

We present a joint analysis of near-ultraviolet ( NUV ) data from the GALEX ( Galaxy Evolution Explorer ) mission and (optical) colour profiles for a sample of seven brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) in the Canadian Cluster Comparison Project. We find that every BCG, which has a blue rest-frame UV colour, also shows a blue core in its optical colour profile. Conversely, BCGs that lack blue cores and show monotonic colour gradients typical of old elliptical galaxies are red in the UV. We interpret this as evidence that the NUV enhancement in the blue BCGs is driven by recent star formation and not from old evolved stellar populations such as horizontal branch stars. Furthermore, the UV enhancement cannot be from an active galactic nuclei (AGN) because the spatial extent of the blue cores is significantly larger than the possible contamination region due to a massive black hole. The recent star formation in the blue BCGs typically has an age less than 200 Myr and contributes mass fractions of less than a per cent. Although the sample studied here is small, we demonstrate, for the first time , a one-to-one correspondence between blue cores in elliptical galaxies (in particular BCGs) and a NUV enhancement observed using GALEX . The combination of this one-to-one correspondence and the consistently young age of recent star formation, coupled with additional correlations with the host cluster's X-ray properties, strongly suggests that the star formation is fuelled by gas cooling out of the intracluster medium. In turn, this implies that any AGN heating of the intracluster medium in massive clusters only acts to reduce the magnitude of the cooling flow and once this flow starts, it is nearly always active. Collectively, these results suggest that AGN feedback in present-day BCGs, while important, cannot be as efficient as suggested by the recent theoretical model by proposed by De Lucia et al.     

On the jet contribution to the active galactic nuclei cosmic energy budget

Black holes release energy via the production of photons in their accretion discs but also via the acceleration of jets. We investigate the relative importance of these two paths over cosmic time by determining the mechanical luminosity function (LF) of radio sources and by comparing it to a previous determination of the bolometric LF of active galactic nuclei (AGN) from X-ray, optical and infrared observations. The mechanical LF of radio sources is computed in two steps: the determination of the mechanical luminosity as a function of the radio luminosity and its convolution with the radio LF of radio sources. Even with the large uncertainty deriving from the former, we can conclude that the contribution of jets is unlikely to be much larger than ∼10 per cent of the AGN energy budget at any cosmic epoch.     

325-MHz observations of the ELAIS-N1 field using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope

We present observations of the European Large-Area ISO Survey-North 1 (ELAIS-N1) at 325 MHz using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), with the ultimate objective of identifying active galactic nuclei and starburst galaxies and examining their evolution with cosmic epoch. After combining the data from two different days we have achieved a median rms noise of  ≈40 μJy  beam⁻¹, which is the lowest that has been achieved at this frequency. We detect 1286 sources with a total flux density above  ≈270 μJy  . In this paper, we use our deep radio image to examine the spectral indices of these sources by comparing our flux density estimates with those of Garn et al. at 610 MHz with the GMRT, and surveys with the Very Large Array at 1400 MHz. We attempt to identify very steep spectrum sources which are likely to be either relic sources or high-redshift objects as well as inverted-spectra objects which could be Giga-Hertz Peaked Spectrum objects. We present the source counts, and report the possibility of a flattening in the normalized differential counts at low flux densities which has so far been reported at higher radio frequencies.