J/ApJS/281/34 Giant radio quasars from TGSS and their environment (Manik+, 2025)
Unveiling new giant radio quasars from the TGSS sky and their large-scale
environment.
Manik S., Bhukta N., Pal S., Mondal S.K.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 281, 34 (2025)>
=2025ApJS..281...34M 2025ApJS..281...34M
ADC_Keywords: QSOs; Radio sources; Active gal. nuclei; Galaxies, radio;
Radio continuum; Intergalactic medium; Morphology
Keywords: Giant radio galaxies ; Radio galaxies ; Active galactic nuclei ;
Radio loud quasars ; Extragalactic radio sources ;
Galaxy environments ; Radio sources ; Radio astronomy ;
Radio continuum emission
Abstract:
Giant radio quasars (GRQs) are radiatively efficient radio-loud active
galactic nuclei that propel large-scale radio jets with projected
lengths of more than 0.7Mpc. We report the discovery of 53 new GRQs
within a redshift range of 0.14-2.38, as well as 316 new nongiant
extended radio quasars (NGERQs) within a redshift range of
0.037-3.356, from the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey Alternative Data Release 1.
The projected lengths of the new GRQs range from 0.7 to ∼2.2Mpc, and
the projected lengths of the new NGERQs range from 67 to 695kpc. We
found that the spectral indices of GRQs are statistically similar to
those of NGERQs. We have also investigated the large-scale
environmental and jet asymmetry properties of the combined sample,
which includes new sources and previously discovered extended radio
quasars (ERQs) from the literature. The results indicate that at least
13% of GRQs and 14% of NGERQs in the sample are located in galaxy
groups and cluster environments. Similar lower-bound percentages
reside near large-scale filamentary structures, with median projected
distances of 5.9 and 4.3Mpc from their respective host quasars. At the
current survey noise levels, we find that the projected lengths of
ERQs in our sample at z≥1 are smaller than those at z<1. Furthermore,
GRQs at z≥1 exhibit greater arm-length asymmetry compared to NGERQs,
which may be attributed to an asymmetric environment.
Description:
We used the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey (TGSS) ADR1
(Intema+ 2017, J/A+A/598/A78) radio survey at 150MHz to search for
extended radio quasars (ERQs). The TGSS-ADR1 includes continuum Stokes
I images covering 35,900deg2 of the sky between -53° and +90°
decl., which is 90% of the total sky. The resolution of the survey is
25"x25" north of 19° decl. and 25"x25"/cos(decl.-19°) south of
19° decl.
We have searched for ERQs from TGSS-ADR1 radio maps at 150MHz using
the MILLIQUAS catalog final release (MILLIQUAS v8;
Flesch 2023, VII/294), which includes all published quasars up to
2023 June 30, including quasars from the first release of the Dark
Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI-EDR) and the SDSS-DR18 black
hole Mapper. See Section 2.2.
In this work, we also present an environmental analysis of the
combined ERQ sample, including the new ERQs presented here and the
previously discovered ERQs from Kuzmicz & Jamrozy (2021, J/ApJS/253/25),
Mahato+ (2022, J/A+A/660/A59). The details of the previously
discovered ERQs, galaxy cluster/group, and large-scale filament
catalogs used in this study are listed in Section 3.
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
table3.dat 150 53 Radio properties of giant radio quasars (GRQs)
table4.dat 163 316 Radio properties of nongiant extended radio
quasars (NGERQs)
table5.dat 69 136 Large-scale environmental properties based on the
neighbouring galaxy groups and clusters
table6.dat 64 133 Large-scale environmental properties based on the
neighbouring cosmic filamentary structures
table7.dat 41 348 Asymmetry properties of all the ERQs;
updated version by the author
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
III/286 : APOGEE-2 DR17 final allStar catalog (Abdurro'uf+, 2022)
VIII/65 : 1.4GHz NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) (Condon+ 1998)
VII/259 : 6dF galaxy survey final redshift release (Jones+, 2009)
V/154 : Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), Release 16 (DR16) (Ahumada+, 2020)
VII/289 : SDSS quasar catalog, sixteenth data release (DR16Q) (Lyke+, 2020)
VII/294 : The Million Quasars (Milliquas) catalogue, version 8 (Flesch, 2023)
J/AJ/109/14 : Optical spectroscopy of Abell clusters. I. (Owen+ 1995)
J/ApJS/129/547 : RBSC-NVSS sample. I. (Bauer+, 2000)
J/MNRAS/323/757 : Deep X-Ray Radio Blazar Survey (DXRBS). II. (Landt+, 2001)
J/A+A/406/579 : B3-VLA sample. III. Polarisation (Klein+, 2003)
J/ApJS/167/1 : Galaxy groups and clusters from SDSS (Berlind+, 2006)
J/AJ/131/1 : Binary quasars in the SDSS (Hennawi+, 2006)
J/MNRAS/392/19 : The 2dF-SDSS QSO survey (Croom+, 2009)
J/ApJS/180/67 : Phot. selection of QSOs from SDSS. II. (Richards+, 2009)
J/MNRAS/421/1569 : Properties of 18286 SDSS radio galaxies (Best+, 2012)
J/ApJS/201/31 : Emission-line galaxies from SDSS. I. (Ge+, 2012)
J/MNRAS/426/851 : Giant Radio Quasars properties (Kuzmicz+, 2012)
J/A+A/540/A106 : SDSS-DR8 groups and clusters of galaxies (Tempel+, 2012)
J/AJ/146/10 : Spectroscopy of emission-line ICRF2 cand. (Titov+, 2013)
J/ApJS/219/39 : QSOs selection from SDSS and WISE (Richards+, 2015)
J/ApJ/807/178 : Rich galaxy clusters identified in SDSS-DR12 (Wen+, 2015)
J/A+A/598/A78 : The GMRT 150MHz all-sky radio survey (Intema+, 2017)
J/other/NewA/58.61 : SDSS DR9 galaxy clusters optical catalog (Banerjee+, 2018)
J/AJ/155/189 : LAMOST Quasar Survey: QSOs from DR2&3 (Dong+, 2018)
J/ApJS/238/9 : Giant radio sources known to date (Kuzmicz+, 2018)
J/MNRAS/475/343 : 2MASS, WISE & SuperCOSMOS clusters of gal. (Wen+, 2018)
J/ApJS/243/21 : Broad-line AGN from SDSS-DR7 (Liu+, 2019)
J/A+A/622/A1 : LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey DR1 sources (Shimwell+, 2019)
J/A+A/628/A69 : LOFAR 143MHz images of 3C 236 (Shulevski+, 2019)
J/ApJS/240/6 : LAMOST Quasar Survey: Data Releases 4 and 5 (Yao+, 2019)
J/ApJ/872/134 : A uniformly selected, all-sky, opt. AGN cat. (Zaw+, 2019)
J/A+A/635/A5 : LoTSS giant radio galaxies. I. (Dabhade+, 2020)
J/A+A/642/A153 : SAGAN. I. Multi-wavelength studies (Dabhade+, 2020)
J/other/Galax/9.99 : Giant Radio Galaxies in RACS (Andernach+, 2021)
J/ApJS/253/3 : Sunyaev-Zel'dovich gal. clusters with ACT (Hilton+, 2021)
J/ApJS/253/25 : Giant radio QSOs from SDSS, FIRST & NVSS (Kuzmicz+, 2021)
J/MNRAS/500/1003 : Redshifts for gal. in the HSC-SSP and unWISE (Wen+, 2021)
J/MNRAS/516/372 : Radio galaxies & clusters from 150GHz TGSS (Bhukta+, 2022)
J/A+A/659/A166 : Catalogue of Cosmic Filaments (Carron Duque+, 2022)
J/A+A/668/A64 : GRG-J2233+1315 GMRT and LOFAR images (Dabhade+, 2022)
J/A+A/661/A2 : Galaxy clusters and groups in eFEDS (Liu+, 2022)
J/A+A/660/A59 : SAGAN III. Giant radio quasars (Mahato+, 2022)
J/A+A/659/A1 : LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) DR2 (Shimwell+, 2022)
J/MNRAS/515/2032 : LoTSS Bootes Deep Field Giant Radio Gal. (Simonte+, 2022)
J/A+A/674/A41 : Composite quasar spectra from Gaia DR3 (Gaia Coll., 2023)
J/ApJS/265/25 : LAMOST Quasar Survey DR6-DR9 (Jin+, 2023)
J/A+A/672/A163 : Properties of the 2060 giant radio galaxies (Oei+, 2023)
J/A+A/691/A185 : GRG constraints from ML and Bayesian inf. (Mostert+, 2024)
J/A+A/686/A137 : Cosmic Web properties for radio galaxies (Oei+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 2 I2 --- Seq [1/53] Serial number
4- 17 A14 --- Name Name of giant radio quasar (JHHMMSS+DDMMSS)
19- 28 F10.6 deg RAdeg Right ascension of host galaxy (J2000)
30- 38 F9.6 deg DEdeg [-8/60] Declination of host galaxy (J2000)
40- 43 F4.2 Jy S150 [0.09/3.7] Integrated radio flux density of
GRQ at 150MHz
45- 48 F4.2 Jy e_S150 [0.01/0.4] Uncertainty in S150
50- 54 F5.1 mJy S1400 [15/434]? Integrated radio flux density of
GRQ at 1.4GHz
56- 61 F6.2 mJy e_S1400 [0.7/120.1]? Uncertainty in S1400
63- 66 F4.2 --- alpha [0.48/1.64] Integrated spectral index of
source
68- 72 F5.2 mJy Score [0.8/40.5]? Core radio flux density at 1.4GHz
74- 77 F4.2 mJy e_Score [0.1/0.2]? Uncertainty in Score
79- 83 F5.2 mJy F3 [0.9/30]? Core radio flux density of GRQ at
3GHz
85- 88 F4.2 mJy e_F3 [0.19/1.1]? Uncertainty in F3
90- 94 F5.2 --- aCore [-1.35/0.5]? Core spectral index of GRQ
96- 98 I3 arcsec LAS [82/308] Linear Angular Size
100- 104 F5.3 --- z [0.14/2.4] Redshift of host galaxy
106- 111 A6 --- r_z Reference for z (G1)
113- 116 F4.2 Mpc LS [0.7/2.2] Projected linear size of GRQ
118- 122 F5.2 [W/Hz] logP150 [25.8/27.9] Log of total radio power
at 150MHz
124- 128 F5.2 [W/Hz] logP1400 [25/27]? Log of total radio power at 1.4GHz
130- 134 F5.2 [W/Hz] logPcore [23.6/26.3]? Log of radio power of core at
1.4GHz
136- 139 F4.2 --- CDF [0.02/2.4]? Core Dominance Factor at 5GHz (1)
141- 150 A10 --- ID Position-based (JHHMM+DDMM) name
as in Tables 5-7; column added by CDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): The core dominance factor (CDF) equals the ratio between the core
flux density (Score) and the extended flux density (Sext) of GRQs and
NGERQs. See Section 4.2.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 3 I3 --- Seq [1/316] Serial number
5- 18 A14 --- Name Name of giant radio quasar (JHHMMSS+DDMMSS)
20- 29 F10.6 deg RAdeg Right ascension of host galaxy (J2000)
31- 39 F9.6 deg DEdeg [-9.1/67] Declination of host galaxy (J2000)
41- 45 F5.2 Jy S150 [0.05/39] Integrated radio flux density of
NGERQ at 150MHz
47- 51 F5.3 Jy e_S150 [0.006/4] Uncertainty in S150
53- 58 F6.1 mJy S1400 [9/7548]? Integrated radio flux density of
NGERQ at 1.4GHz
60- 65 F6.2 mJy e_S1400 [0.5/378]? Uncertainty in S1400
67- 71 F5.2 --- alpha [-0.14/2] Integrated spectral index of source
73- 78 F6.2 mJy Score [1/735]? Core radio flux density at 1.4GHz
80- 83 F4.2 mJy e_Score [0.08/1]? Uncertainty in Score
85- 91 F7.2 mJy F3 [0.78/1065]? Core radio flux density of
NGERQ at 3GHz
93- 96 F4.2 mJy e_F3 [0.17/2]? Uncertainty in F3
98- 102 F5.2 --- aCore [-3/0.6]? Core spectral index of NGERQ
104- 106 I3 arcsec LAS [18/315]? Linear Angular Size
108- 113 F6.4 --- z [0.03/3.4] Redshift of host galaxy
115- 120 A6 --- r_z Reference for z (G1)
122- 128 F7.5 Mpc LS [0.07/0.7] Projected linear size of NGERQ
130- 134 F5.2 [W/Hz] logP150 [24.2/28.3] Log of total radio power at 150MHz
136- 140 F5.2 [W/Hz] logP1400 [24/27.5]? Log of total radio power at 1.4GHz
142- 146 F5.2 [W/Hz] logPcore [22/27]? Log of radio power of core at 1.4GHz
148- 152 F5.2 --- CDF [0.01/21]? Core Dominance Factor at 5.0GHz
154- 163 A10 --- ID Position-based (JHHMM+DDMM) name
as in Tables 5-7; column added by CDS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table5.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 3 I3 --- Seq [1/136] Serial number
5- 14 A10 --- ID Position-based (JHHMM+DDMM) name
16- 20 F5.3 --- z [0.037/1.3] Redshift of host galaxy
22 I1 --- N0.5cl [0/3] Number of neighbouring galaxy groups
and clusters within 0.5Mpc
24 I1 --- N1cl [0/3] Number of neighbouring galaxy groups
and clusters within 1Mpc
26 I1 --- N2cl [0/5] Number of neighbouring galaxy groups
and clusters within 2Mpc
28- 29 I2 --- N5cl [0/19] Number of neighbouring galaxy
groups and clusters within 5Mpc
31- 32 I2 --- N10cl [1/31] Number of neighbouring galaxy
groups and clusters within 10Mpc
34- 38 F5.3 --- zetacl5-10 [0/1] Ratio of number of nearby galaxy
groups and clusters within 5 to 10Mpc
40- 43 F4.2 Mpc dnncl [0/10] Euclidean distance to nearest
galaxy group or cluster
45- 48 F4.2 Mpc dmeancl [0.59/10] Average euclidean distance to
nearby galaxy groups or clusters within
10Mpc
50- 55 F6.4 --- sigmaz [0/0.005] Redshift difference between host
quasar and nearby galaxy groups/clusters
57- 63 F7.2 km/s vrel [0/1065] Radial component of relative
velocity of host quasar with respect to
galaxy groups/clusters
65- 69 A5 --- Type Object type (1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): Object type as follows:
GRQ = giant radio quasar (40 occurrences)
NGERQ = non-giant extended radio quasar (96 occurrences)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table6.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 3 I3 --- Seq [1/133] Serial number
5- 14 A10 --- ID Position-based (JHHMM-DDMM) name
16- 23 F8.6 --- z [0.05/1.9] Redshift of host galaxy
25 I1 --- N1cf [0/7] Number of nearby random points of
filamentary structure within 1Mpc
27- 28 I2 --- N2cf [0/17] Number of nearby random points of
filamentary structure within 2Mpc
30- 31 I2 --- N5cf [0/18] Number of nearby random points of
filamentary structure within 5Mpc
33- 34 I2 --- N10cf [0/21] Number of nearby random points of
filamentary structure within 10Mpc
36- 40 F5.3 --- concf5-10 [0/1]? Ratio of number of nearby random
points of filamentary structure within 5 to
10Mpc
42- 46 F5.2 Mpc dnncf [0.27/18.2] Euclidean distance to nearest
random point of filamentary structure
48- 51 F4.2 --- varrho [1.56/2.8]? Mean density of IGM within 10Mpc
53- 58 F6.2 deg varphi [2.38/358]? Average angle formed by random
points of neighbouring filaments within
10Mpc (1)
60- 64 A5 --- Type Object type (2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): With the parallels of the sphere in these coordinates, measures in a
counter-clockwise direction.
Note (2): Type as follows:
GRQ = giant radio quasar (40 occurrences)
NGERQ = non-giant extended radio quasar (93 occurrences)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table7.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 3 I3 --- Seq [1/348] Serial number
5- 14 A10 --- ID Name of GRQ (JHHMM+DDMM)
16- 19 F4.2 --- Q [1.0/2.92] Arm-length ratio
21- 25 F5.2 --- F [0.06/11.94] Flux density ratio (1)
27- 30 F4.2 --- X [0.0/0.5] Fractional separation distance
32- 35 F4.2 --- f-rho [0.01/2.7] IGM density asymmetry parameter
37- 41 A5 --- Type Object type (2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): The ratio between the flux density of the longer arm's hotspot and
the flux density of the shorter arm's hotspot.
Note (2): Type as follows:
GRQ = giant radio quasar (112 occurrences)
NGERQ = non-giant extended radio quasar (236 occurrences)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global notes:
Note (G1): Reference as follows:
DR16 = Ahumada+ 2020, V/154
LAMQ5 = Yao+ 2019, J/ApJS/240/6
DR16Q = Lyke et al. 2020, VII/289
914 = Jarvis et al. 2001MNRAS.326.1563J 2001MNRAS.326.1563J
NBCKv3 = Richards et al. 2015, J/ApJS/219/39
GAIA3 = Gaia et al. 2023, J/A+A/674/A41
MQ = Flesch 2023, VII/294
DPeake = Ge et al. 2012, J/ApJS/201/31
DESEDR = DESI Collaboration et al. 2024AJ....168...58D 2024AJ....168...58D
LAMQ3 = Dong et al. 2018, J/AJ/155/189
DR14Q = Paris et al. 2018, VII/286
NBCKDE = Richards et al. 2009, J/ApJS/180/67
LOZAGN = Liu et al. 2019, J/ApJS/243/21
1058 = Laurent-Muehleisen et al. 1998ApJS..118..127L 1998ApJS..118..127L
DR17 = Abdurro'uf et al. 2022ApJS..259...35A 2022ApJS..259...35A
LAMQ9 = Jin et al. 2023, J/ApJS/265/25
2MAGN = Zaw 2019, J/ApJ/872/134
1395 = Owen et al. 1995, J/AJ/109/14
2046 = Willott et al. 1998MNRAS.300..625W 1998MNRAS.300..625W
DR18Q = Merloni et al., in preparation;
eFEDS = Liu et al. 2022, J/A+A/661/A2
6dF = Jones et al. 2009, VII/259
2SLAQ = Croom et al. 2009, J/MNRAS/392/19
QUBzs = Cristiani et al. 2023MNRAS.522.2019C 2023MNRAS.522.2019C
139 = Bauer et al. 2000, J/ApJS/129/547
774 = Harris et al. 1992AJ....104...53H 1992AJ....104...53H
31 = Hewitt et al. 1992AJ....104..968H 1992AJ....104..968H
DR16QN = Abdurro'uf et al. 2022ApJS..259...35A 2022ApJS..259...35A
811 = Hennawi et al. 2006, J/AJ/131/1
1865 = Titov et al. 2013, J/AJ/146/10
1051 = Landt et al. 2001, J/MNRAS/323/757
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
From electronic version of the journal
* Tables 5-7 names have been corrected by the author
Acknowledgments:
Souvik Manik [souvikmanik12 at gmail dot com]
License: CC-BY-4.0
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 25-Jun-2026