Despite considerable efforts over the past decade, only 34 fast radio bursts-intense bursts of radio emission from beyond our Galaxy-have been reported
. Attempts to understand the population as a ...whole have been hindered by the highly heterogeneous nature of the searches, which have been conducted with telescopes of different sensitivities, at a range of radio frequencies, and in environments corrupted by different levels of radio-frequency interference from human activity. Searches have been further complicated by uncertain burst positions and brightnesses-a consequence of the transient nature of the sources and the poor angular resolution of the detecting instruments. The discovery of repeating bursts from one source
, and its subsequent localization
to a dwarf galaxy at a distance of 3.7 billion light years, confirmed that the population of fast radio bursts is located at cosmological distances. However, the nature of the emission remains elusive. Here we report a well controlled, wide-field radio survey for these bursts. We found 20, none of which repeated during follow-up observations between 185-1,097 hours after the initial detections. The sample includes both the nearest and the most energetic bursts detected so far. The survey demonstrates that there is a relationship between burst dispersion and brightness and that the high-fluence bursts are the nearby analogues of the more distant events found in higher-sensitivity, narrower-field surveys
.
Abstract
Many radio galaxies show the presence of dense and dusty gas near the active nucleus. This can be traced by both 21 cm H i absorption and soft X-ray absorption, offering new insight into the ...physical nature of the circumnuclear medium of these distant galaxies. To better understand this relationship, we investigate soft X-ray absorption as an indicator for the detection of associated H i absorption, as part of preparation for the First Large Absorption Survey in H i to be undertaken with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). We present the results of our pilot study using the Boolardy Engineering Test Array, a precursor to ASKAP, to search for new absorption detections in radio sources brighter than 1 Jy that also feature soft X-ray absorption. Based on this pilot survey, we detected H i absorption towards the radio source PKS 1657−298 at a redshift of z = 0.42. This source also features the highest X-ray absorption ratio of our pilot sample by a factor of 3, which is consistent with our general findings that X-ray absorption predicates the presence of dense neutral gas. By comparing the X-ray properties of active galactic nuclei with and without detection of H i absorption at radio wavelengths, we find that X-ray hardness ratio and H i absorption optical depth are correlated at a statistical significance of 4.71σ. We conclude by considering the impact of these findings on future radio and X-ray absorption studies.
Using the Boolardy Engineering Test Array of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP BETA), we have carried out the first z = 0-1 survey for Hi and OH absorption towards the ...gravitationally lensed quasars PKS B1830-211 and MG J0414+0534. Although we detected all previously reported intervening systems towards PKS B1830-211, in the case of MG J0414+0534, three systems were not found, indicating that the original identifications may have been confused with radio frequency interference. Given the sensitivity of our data, we find that our detection yield is consistent with the expected frequency of intervening Hi systems estimated from previous surveys for 21-cm emission in nearby galaxies and z ~ 3 damped Lyman a absorbers. We find spectral variability in the z = 0.886 face-on spiral galaxy towards PKS B1830-211 from observations undertaken with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in 1997/1998 and ASKAP BETA in 2014/2015. The Hi equivalent width varies by a few per cent over approximately yearly time-scales. This long-term spectral variability is correlated between the north-east and south-west images of the core, and with the total flux density of the source, implying that it is observationally coupled to intrinsic changes in the quasar. The absence of any detectable variability in the ratio of Hi associated with the two core images is in stark contrast to the behaviour previously seen in the molecular lines. We therefore infer that coherent opaque Hi structures in this galaxy are larger than the parsec-scale molecular clouds found at mm-wavelengths.
ABSTRACT
Obscuration of quasars by accreted gas and dust, or dusty intervening galaxies, can cause active galactic nuclei (AGN) to be missed in optically selected surveys. Radio observations can ...overcome this dust bias. In particular, radio surveys searching for H i absorption inform us on how the AGN can impact on the cold neutral gas medium within the host galaxy, or the population of intervening galaxies through the observed line of sight gas kinematics. We present the results of an H i absorption line survey at 0.4 < z < 1 towards 34 obscured quasars with the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) commissioning array. We detect three H i absorption lines, with one of these systems previously unknown. Through optical follow-up for two sources, we find that in all detections the H i gas is associated with the AGN, and hence that these AGN are obscured by material within their host galaxies. Most of our sample are compact, and in addition, are either gigahertz peaked spectrum (GPS), or steep spectrum (CSS) sources, both thought to represent young or recently re-triggered radio AGN. The radio spectral energy distribution classifications for our sample agree with galaxy evolution models in which the obscured AGN has only recently become active. Our associated H i detection rate for GPS and compact SS sources matches those of other surveys towards such sources. We also find shallow and asymmetric H i absorption features, which agrees with previous findings that the cold neutral medium in compact radio galaxies is typically kinematically disturbed by the AGN.
We report the discovery of a new 21-cm H i absorption system using commissioning data from the Boolardy Engineering Test Array of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). Using the ...711.5–1015.5 MHz band of ASKAP we were able to conduct a blind search for the 21-cm line in a continuous redshift range between z = 0.4 and 1.0, which has, until now, remained largely unexplored. The absorption line is detected at z = 0.44 towards the GHz-peaked spectrum radio source PKS B1740−517 and demonstrates ASKAP's excellent capability for performing a future wide-field survey for H i absorption at these redshifts. Optical spectroscopy and imaging using the Gemini-South telescope indicates that the H i gas is intrinsic to the host galaxy of the radio source. The narrow O iii emission lines show clear double-peaked structure, indicating either large-scale outflow or rotation of the ionized gas. Archival data from the XMM–Newton satellite exhibit an absorbed X-ray spectrum that is consistent with a high column density obscuring medium around the active galactic nucleus. The H i absorption profile is complex, with four distinct components ranging in width from 5 to 300 km s−1 and fractional depths from 0.2 to 20 per cent. In addition to systemic H i gas, in a circumnuclear disc or ring structure aligned with the radio jet, we find evidence for a possible broad outflow of neutral gas moving at a radial velocity of v ∼ 300 km s−1. We infer that the expanding young radio source (t
age ≈ 2500 yr) is cocooned within a dense medium and may be driving circumnuclear neutral gas in an outflow of ∼1 M⊙ yr−1.
The Boolardy Engineering Test Array is a 6 × 12 m dish interferometer and the prototype of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), equipped with the first generation of ASKAP's ...phased array feed (PAF) receivers. These facilitate rapid wide-area imaging via the deployment of simultaneous multiple beams within an ∼30 deg2 field of view. By cycling the array through 12 interleaved pointing positions and using nine digitally formed beams, we effectively mimic a traditional 1 h × 108 pointing survey, covering ∼150 deg2 over 711–1015 MHz in 12 h of observing time. Three such observations were executed over the course of a week. We verify the full bandwidth continuum imaging performance and stability of the system via self-consistency checks and comparisons to existing radio data. The combined three epoch image has arcminute resolution and a 1σ thermal noise level of 375 μJy beam−1, although the effective noise is a factor of ∼3 higher due to residual sidelobe confusion. From this we derive a catalogue of 3722 discrete radio components, using the 35 per cent fractional bandwidth to measure in-band spectral indices for 1037 of them. A search for transient events reveals one significantly variable source within the survey area. The survey covers approximately two-thirds of the Spitzer South Pole Telescope Deep Field. This pilot project demonstrates the viability and potential of using PAFs to rapidly and accurately survey the sky at radio wavelengths.
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