J/MNRAS/505/4726 Study of relativistic jets in blazar objects (Keenan+, 2021)
The relativistic jet dichotomy and the end of the blazar sequence.
Keenan M., Meyer E.T., Georganopoulos M., Reddy K., French O.J.
<Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 505, 4726-4745 (2021)>
=2021MNRAS.505.4726K 2021MNRAS.505.4726K (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Active gal. nuclei ; QSOs ; Pulsars ; Black holes ; Galaxies ;
Radio sources ; Infrared sources ; Optical ; X-ray sources ;
Ultraviolet ; Millimetric/submm sources ; Spectrophotometry ;
Redshifts ; References
Keywords: catalogues - galaxies: active - galaxies: jets -
BL Lacertae objects: general
Abstract:
Our understanding of the unification of jetted AGN has evolved greatly
as jet samples have increased in size. Here, based on the largest-ever
sample of over 2000 well-sampled jet spectral energy distributions, we
examine the synchrotron peak frequency - peak luminosity plane, and
find little evidence for the anticorrelation known as the blazar
sequence. Instead, we find strong evidence for a dichotomy in jets,
between those associated with efficient or 'quasar- mode' accretion
(strong/type II jets) and those associated with inefficient accretion
(weak/type I jets). Type II jets include those hosted by high-excitation
radio galaxies, flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ), and
most low-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects. Type I jets include those
hosted by low- excitation radio galaxies and blazars with synchrotron
peak frequency above 1015 Hz (nearly all BL Lac objects). We have
derived estimates of the total jet power for over 1000 of our sources
from low-frequency radio observations, and find that the jet dichotomy
does not correspond to a division in jet power. Rather, type II jets
are produced at all observed jet powers, down to the lowest levels in
our sample, while type I jets range from very low to moderately high
jet powers, with a clear upper bound at L300MHz ∼ 1043 erg/s. The
range of jet power in each class matches exactly what is expected for
efficient (i.e. a few to 100 % Eddington) or inefficient (< 0.5% Eddington)
accretion on to black holes ranging in mass from
107M☉ to 109.5M☉.
Description:
In this paper, our aim is to re-examine blazar phenomenology and in
particular the evidence for a dichotomy in the jet population and its
link to accretion. The general approach we have taken in this study is
similar to M11, in that our aim is to collect the largest possible
sample of well-characterized jet SEDs, in order to get the most
complete picture of the phenomenology of the population.
The initial sample of jetted AGN was compiled from the catalogues of
jetted sources listed in table1.dat where we give the catalogue
informations such as the total number of sources in that sample and
the total from that sample included in our 'well-sampled' (TEX/UEX)
catalogue. The total sample comprises 6856 sources after accounting
for duplicates. Many sources in this list have very poorly sampled
SEDs, often with little to no data beyond the radio. We have attempted
to gather as much archival photometric and/or imaging data as possible
at all wavelengths for this initial sample, and have also conducted
observing campaigns in the radio and sub-mm in order to maximize the
subset of the sample with well-sampled SEDs.
These observing campaigns (VLA and ALMA observations respectively
table3.dat and table4.dat) complete published data source from NED and
other surveys (i.e table 2 section 2.2.1). We have reduced and
analysed (throught gaussian fits via CASA photometry package) 434
archival observations from the pre-upgrade Very Large Array (VLA) and
26 observations from the upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array
(JVLA). We analysed 116 archival observations from the Atacama Large
Millimetre/submillimetre array (ALMA) for this project. We also
analysed 16, 25, and 12 new ALMA observations from our projects (also
reduced with CASA photometry package).
Hereafter, we analysed SEDs with fitting functions of our sample to
study the jet power of blazars by calculating frequencies and
luminoties of lobes, cores and synchrotrons peaks. (i.e more details
in sections 2.3 Jet power and 2.4 SED fitting).
Consequently, from the initial sample of nearly 7000 sources, we have
selected those where the full SED had sufficient spectral coverage to
reliably fit the synchrotron peak and return a value for the peak
frequency and luminosity. All SEDs were assessed visually for goodness
of fit, without any a priori knowledge about their identity or type,
simply based on being well-fit with an appropriate amount of spectral
coverage, following the same procedure as in Meyer et al.
(2011ApJ...740...98M 2011ApJ...740...98M, Cat. J/ApJ/740/98).
Generally, those that were eliminated lacked coverage over significant
portions of the spectrum (e.g. no optical and/or X-ray) or could be
reasonably fit by two or more very different SED shapes (often in
these cases the X-ray spectral index is unknown - see Appendix section).
Remained after assessing the reliability of the broad-band SED fit. Of
these, 1045 sources have estimates of the extended radio luminosity,
and we call this sample the 'Trusted Extended' (TEX) sample.
Additionally, another 1079 sources with good broad-band SEDs only have
upper limits on Lexti (lobes luminosity). We call this the 'Unknown
Extended' (UEX) sample as in Meyer et al. (2011ApJ...740...98M 2011ApJ...740...98M, Cat.
J/ApJ/740/98). We regroup radio and broad-band properties of TEX in
table6.dat and table7.dat and synthesize those for UEX in tableb1.dat,
(More details on tables contains in section 2.5, 2.7 and 2.8).
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
table3.dat 72 402 VLA observations
table4.dat 78 156 ALMA Observations
table6.dat 88 1045 'Trusted Extended (TEX) sample' radio properties
table7.dat 83 1045 'Trusted Extended (TEX) sample' broad-band
properties
tableb1.dat 119 1079 'Unknown Extended (UEX) sample' radio and
broad-band properties
table1.dat 170 23 Radio-loud AGN samples
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also:
J/MNRAS/466/4346 : Properties of 1329 extended radio galaxies (Miraghaei+,2017)
J/ApJ/740/98 : Synchrotron peak for blazars and radio galaxies
(Meyer+, 2011)
J/ApJ/846/98 : Jet kinematics of blazars at 43GHz with the VLBA
(Jorstad+, 2017)
J/ApJ/853/68 : Multi-epoch VLBA imaging of 20 Tev blazars (Piner+, 2018)
J/ApJ/874/43 : MOJAVE. XVII. Parsec-scale jet kinematics of AGNs
(Lister+, 2019)
J/MNRAS/454/3864 : Orientation & QSO black hole mass estimation
(Brotherton+ 2015)
J/MNRAS/397/1713 : SDSS DR3 flat-spectrum radio quasars (Chen+, 2009)
J/ApJ/831/134 : BH masses & host galaxy dispersion vel.
(van den Bosch, 2016)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 14 A14 --- Name Source Name (Source)
16- 17 A2 --- Band Observational VLA wavelength band (Band) (1)
19- 23 F5.2 GHz Freq Observational frequency (Frequency)
25- 31 A7 --- Code Project code (Project_code)
33- 42 A10 "date" Obs.date Observation date (Observation_date)
44- 51 E8.3 Jy/beam RMS RMS flux intensity peer beam area (RMS) (G2)
53- 57 F5.2 arcsec MajAxis Major axis FWHM (BeamSizema) (G2)
59- 63 F5.2 arcsec MinAxis Minor axis FWHM (BeamSizemi) (G2)
65- 72 E8.3 Jy Flux Core flux intensity (Core_flux) (G2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): All VLA antennas are outfitted with eight cryogenically cooled
receivers providing continuous frequency coverage from 1 to 50 GHz.
These receivers cover the frequency ranges of 1-2 GHz (L-band),
2-4 GHz (S-band), 4-8 GHz (C-band), 8-12 GHz (X-band),
12-18 GHz (Ku-band), 18-26.5 GHz (K-band), 26.5-40 GHz (Ka-band),
and 40-50 GHz (Q-band). Additionally, all antennas of the VLA have
receivers for lower frequencies, enabling observations at both
P-band (200-500 MHz) and 4-band (54-86 MHz).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 13 A13 --- Name Source Name (Source)
15 I1 --- Band Observational ALMA receiver band (Band) (1)
17- 22 F6.2 GHz Freq Observational frequency (Frequency)
24- 37 A14 --- Code Project code (Project_code)
39- 48 A10 "date" Obs.date Observation date (Observation_date)
50- 57 E8.3 Jy/beam RMS RMS flux intensity peer beam area (RMS) (G2)
59- 63 F5.2 arcsec MajAxis Major axis FWHM (BeamSizema) (G2)
65- 69 F5.2 arcsec MinAxis Minor axis FWHM (BeamSizemi) (G2)
71- 78 E8.3 Jy Flux Core flux intensity (Core_flux) (G2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): ALMA Receiver Bands number refers to specific wavelength coverage.
(please see https://eso.org/public/teles-instr/alma/receiver-bands/)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table6.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 21 A21 --- Name Source Name (Source_name)
23- 24 I2 h RAh Right ascension (J2000)
26- 27 I2 min RAm Right ascension (J2000)
29- 33 F5.2 s RAs Right ascension (J2000)
35 A1 --- DE- Sign of declination (J2000)
36- 37 I2 deg DEd Declination (J2000)
39- 40 I2 arcmin DEm Declination (J2000)
42- 46 F5.2 arcsec DEs Declination (J2000)
48- 53 F6.4 --- z ? Redshift (Redshift) (1)
55- 59 F5.2 [10-7W] Lext Logarithm of extended Luminosity measured at
300 MHz (Lext) (2)
61- 65 F5.2 [10-7W] Lcore Logarithm of the core luminosity measured at
1.4 GHz (Lcore) (3)
67- 72 F6.3 [Hz] lognu Logarithm of the crossing frequency
(nucross) (4)
74- 78 F5.2 [-] Rc The radio core dominance (Rc) (5)
80- 86 A7 c beta ? Apparent jet speed (βapp) (6)
88 A1 --- r_beta ? Reference for apparent jet speed (Ref) (7)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): All redshifts (z) are taken from SIMBAD and/or NED. In the TEX sample
103 sources (169 in the UEX sample) have no redshift information
available on SIMBAD/NED. In these cases, a value of z = 0.3 is assumed
(of the TEX sample, 16 per cent of the UEX sample). This value was
chosen as it is roughly the transition from a nearby source to
high-redshift source (e.g. Birzan et al. 2020MNRAS.496.2613B 2020MNRAS.496.2613B);
however, none of our conclusions depend on this assumption, and we
exclude these sources from plots with quantities (i.e. luminosities)
that are strongly affected by the unknown redshift.
Note (2): A steep SED component due to the extended (isotropic) emission which
dominates at low frequencies. The steep component is due to the
isotropically emitting slowed plasma in the radio lobes.
Details on measure method are described in section 2.3 Jet power.
Note (3): A flat SED component due to the beamed point source core of the jet
which dominates at high frequencies.
Details on measure method are described in section 2.3 Jet power.
Note (4): The frequency at which the spectrum transitions from extended
dominated to core dominated,
(i.e. where the fits intersect, as depicted in Fig. 1 section 2.3).
Note (5): Defined as the log of the ratio of the core to lobe luminosity
at 1.4 GHz.
Note (6): Apparent angular speeds (µ), which are typically on the order
of mas/yr (e.g. Jorstad et al. 2017ApJ...846...98J 2017ApJ...846...98J, Cat. J/ApJ/846/98;
Piner & Edwards 2018ApJ...853...68P 2018ApJ...853...68P, Cat. J/ApJ/853/68;
Lister et al. 2019ApJ...874...43L 2019ApJ...874...43L, Cat. J/ApJ/874/43).
When converted into the apparent speed (βapp) in units
of the speed of light, many sources are found to have superluminal
speeds, up to about 80c, implying highly relativistic flows,
(i.e see section 2.7 Apparent jet speed measurements).
Note (7): Denote the following references for βapp measurements
as follows:
a = Britzen et al. 2008A&A...484..119B 2008A&A...484..119B, Cat. J/A+A/484/119
b = Piner et al. 2007AJ....133.2357P 2007AJ....133.2357P, Cat. J/AJ/133/2357
c = Lister et al. 2016AJ....152...12L 2016AJ....152...12L, Cat. J/AJ/152/12
d = Lister et al. 2019ApJ...874...43L 2019ApJ...874...43L, Cat. J/ApJ/874/43
e = Vermeulen & Cohen 1994ApJ...430..467V 1994ApJ...430..467V, Cat. J/ApJ/430/467
f = Piner & Edwards 2018ApJ...853...68P 2018ApJ...853...68P, Cat. J/ApJ/853/68
g = Lister et al. 2009AJ....138.1874L 2009AJ....138.1874L, Cat. J/AJ/138/1874
h = Piner et al. 2012ApJ...758...84P 2012ApJ...758...84P, Cat. J/ApJ/758/84
i = Lister et al. 2013AJ....146..120L 2013AJ....146..120L, Cat. J/AJ/146/120
j = Kellermann et al. 2004ApJ...609..539K 2004ApJ...609..539K, Cat. J/ApJ/609/539
k = Jorstad et al. 2001ApJS..134..181J 2001ApJS..134..181J
l = Sudou & Iguchi 2011AJ....142...49S 2011AJ....142...49S
m = Jorstad et al. 2017ApJ...846...98J 2017ApJ...846...98J, Cat. J/ApJ/846/98
n = Homan et al. 2001ApJ...549..840H 2001ApJ...549..840H
o = Frey et al. 2015MNRAS.446.2921F 2015MNRAS.446.2921F
p = Piner, Jones & Wehrle 2001AJ....122.2954P 2001AJ....122.2954P
q = Savolainen et al. 2006A&A...446...71S 2006A&A...446...71S
r = An et al. 2017MNRAS.466..952A 2017MNRAS.466..952A
s = Karamanavis et al. 2016A&A...586A..60K 2016A&A...586A..60K, Cat. J/A+A/586/A60
t = Jorstad et al. 2005AJ....130.1418J 2005AJ....130.1418J, Cat. J/AJ/130/1418
u = Jiang et al. 2002ApJ...577...69J 2002ApJ...577...69J
v = Gentile et al. 2007ApJ...659..225G 2007ApJ...659..225G
w = Edwards & Piner 2002ApJ...579L..67E 2002ApJ...579L..67E
x = Lu et al. 2012A&A...544A..89L 2012A&A...544A..89L
y = Britzen et al. 2010A&A...511A..57B 2010A&A...511A..57B
z = Boccardi et al. 2016A&A...585A..33B 2016A&A...585A..33B
aa = Piner & Edwards 2004ApJ...600..115P 2004ApJ...600..115P
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table7.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 21 A21 --- Name Source Name (Source_name)
23- 29 A7 --- Type Object type classification (Type)
31- 35 F5.2 [10-7W] logLpeak Logarithm of the synchrotron peak luminosity
in units of erg/s (Lpeak) (1)
37- 41 F5.2 [Hz] lognupeak Logarithm of the synchrotron peak frequency
(νpeak) (1)
43- 46 F4.1 [Msun] logMBH ? Logarithm of the black hole mass (MBH)
(2)
48- 60 A13 --- r_logMBH Literature references of logMBH
(Ref) (G1)
65- 83 A19 --- Refs Literature references of the source
in table1.dat file (Sample_IDs)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): For sources identified as blazars (or otherwise clearly dominated by
the non-thermal jet), the synchrotron portion of the spectrum was fit
with the parametric SED model from Meyer et al.
(2011ApJ...740...98M 2011ApJ...740...98M, Cat. J/ApJ/740/98)
in order to estimate νpeak and Lpeak.
Please see section 2.4 SED fitting for more details.
Note (2): The section 2.6 Black hole mass measurements summarizes analysis
on MBH estimation. We have attempted to exhaust the literature
to compile MBH measurements for as many sources in the final sample
as possible. Estimates of MBH are available for 227 sources in the
TEX sample. In cases where there are multiple reported values of MBH,
we take the average.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tableb1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 27 A27 --- Name Source Name (Source_name)
29- 30 I2 h RAh Right ascension (J2000)
32- 33 I2 min RAm Right ascension (J2000)
35- 39 F5.2 s RAs [] Right ascension (J2000)
41 A1 --- DE- Sign of declination (J2000)
42- 43 I2 deg DEd Declination (J2000)
45- 46 I2 arcmin DEm Declination (J2000)
48- 52 F5.2 arcsec DEs Declination (J2000)
54- 59 F6.4 --- z ? Redshift (Redshift) (1)
61- 67 A7 --- Type Object type classification (Type)
69- 73 F5.2 [10-7W] loglimit Logarithm of the extended luminosity upper
limit in erg/s (Lextlimit)
75- 79 F5.2 [10-7W] logLpeak Logarithm of the synchrotron peak luminosity
in units of erg/s (Lpeak) (2)
81- 85 F5.2 [Hz] lognupeak Logarithm of the synchrotron peak frequency
(νpeak) (2)
87- 89 F3.1 [Msun] logMBH ? Logarithm of the black hole mass
(MBH) (3)
91- 97 A7 --- r_logMBH Literature references of logMBH (G1)
99-119 A21 --- Refs Literature references of the source
in table1.dat file (Sample_IDs)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): All redshifts (z) are taken from SIMBAD and/or NED. In the TEX sample
103 sources (169 in the UEX sample) have no redshift information
available on SIMBAD/NED. In these cases, a value of z = 0.3 is assumed
(of the TEX sample, 16 per cent of the UEX sample). This value was
chosen as it is roughly the transition from a nearby source to
high-redshift source (e.g. Birzan et al. 2020MNRAS.496.2613B 2020MNRAS.496.2613B);
however, none of our conclusions depend on this assumption, and we
exclude these sources from plots with quantities (i.e. luminosities)
that are strongly affected by the unknown redshift.
Note (2): For sources identified as blazars (or otherwise clearly dominated by
the non-thermal jet), the synchrotron portion of the spectrum was fit
with the parametric SED model from Meyer et al.
(2011ApJ...740...98M 2011ApJ...740...98M, Cat. J/ApJ/740/98)
in order to estimate νpeak and Lpeak.
Please see section 2.4 SED fitting for more details.
Note (3): The section 2.6 Black hole mass measurements summarizes analysis
on MBH estimation. We have attempted to exhaust the literature
to compile MBH measurements for as many sources in the final sample
as possible. Estimates of MBH are available for 47 sources in the
UEX sample. In cases where there are multiple reported values of MBH,
we take the average.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 50 A50 --- Sample The catalogue name (Sample)
52- 57 A6 --- Abbr The common abbreviation (Abbr)
59- 62 I4 --- Ni The total number of sources in that
sample (Ninit)
64- 67 I4 --- Nf The total number of sources included in our
'well-sampled' (TEX/UEX) catalogue (Nfinal)
69- 71 I3 --- Nu The number of unique sources contributed
to the latter (Nunique)
73-168 A96 --- Ref Literature sample reference (Reference)
170 A1 --- f_Ref Letter code reference (Ref_Let) (1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note (1): We give a unique letter code which is used in the later catalogue
table7.dat and tableb1.dat to identify which samples an individual
source appears in. The total sample comprises 6856 sources after
accounting for duplicates. Many sources in this list have very poorly
sampled SEDs, often with little to no data beyond the radio.
We have attempted to gather as much archival photometric and/or
imaging data as possible at all wavelengths for this initial sample
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global notes:
Note (G1): The following references for MBH measurements as follows:
a = Barth, Ho & Sargent 2003ApJ...583..134B 2003ApJ...583..134B
b = Bentz & Katz 2015PASP..127...67B 2015PASP..127...67B
c = Brotherton, Singh & Runnoe 2015MNRAS.454.3864B 2015MNRAS.454.3864B,
Cat. J/MNRAS/454/3864
d = Chen, Gu & Cao 2009MNRAS.397.1713C 2009MNRAS.397.1713C, Cat. J/MNRAS/397/1713
e = Koss et al. 2017ApJ...850...74K 2017ApJ...850...74K, Cat. J/ApJ/850/74
f = Kozlowski 2017ApJS..228....9K 2017ApJS..228....9K, Cat. J/ApJS/228/9
g = Lewis & Eracleous 2006ApJ...642..711L 2006ApJ...642..711L
h = Liu, Jiang & Gu 2006ApJ...637..669L 2006ApJ...637..669L
i = McKernan, Ford & Reynolds 2010MNRAS.407.2399M 2010MNRAS.407.2399M,
Cat. J/MNRAS/407/2399
j = Pian, Falomo & Treves 2005MNRAS.361..919P 2005MNRAS.361..919P
k = Plotkin et al. 2011MNRAS.413..805P 2011MNRAS.413..805P
l = Ricci et al. 2017A&A...598A..51R 2017A&A...598A..51R
m = Savic et al. 2018A&A...614A.120S 2018A&A...614A.120S
n = van den Bosch 2016ApJ...831..134V 2016ApJ...831..134V, Cat. J/ApJ/831/134
o = Wang, Luo & Ho 2004ApJ...615L...9W 2004ApJ...615L...9W
p = Woo & Urry 2002ApJ...579..530W 2002ApJ...579..530W
q = Woo et al. 2005ApJ...631..762W 2005ApJ...631..762W
r = Wu, Liu & Zhang 2002A&A...389..742W 2002A&A...389..742W
s = Wu et al. 2004A&A...424..793W 2004A&A...424..793W
t = Xie et al. 2005AJ....130.2506X 2005AJ....130.2506X
Note (G2): Calculated using the Gaussian fit feature in CASA
(McMullin et al. 2007ASPC..376..127M 2007ASPC..376..127M).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Luc Trabelsi [CDS] 13-Jun-2024