Gamma-ray astronomy

Abstract:

The identification and subsequent discovery of fast radio transients using blind-search surveys require a large amount of processing power, in worst cases scaling as. For this reason, survey data are generally processed off-line, using high-performance computing architectures or hardware-based designs. In recent years, graphics processing units (GPUs) have been extensively used for numerical analysis and scientific simulations, especially after the introduction of new high-level application programming interfaces. Here, we show how GPUs can be used for fast transient discovery in real time. We present a solution to the problem of de-dispersion, providing performance comparisons with a typical computing machine and traditional pulsar processing software. We describe the architecture of a real-time, GPU-based transient search machine. In terms of performance, our GPU solution provides a speed-up factor of between 50 and 200, depending on the parameters of the search. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.

Abstract:

To gain new insights into the radio-loud/radio-quiet dichotomy reported for active galactic nuclei (AGN), we examine radio loudness as a function of Eddington ratio for a previously published sample of 199 AGN from five different populations. After initially considering radio loudnesses derived using total radio luminosities, we repeat the investigation using core radio luminosities only, applying a previously established mass correction for these core luminosities. In both cases, for Eddington ratios <1 per cent, Fanaroff-Riley type I and broad-line radio galaxies are on average more radio-loud than Seyfert and low-ionization nuclear emission-line region galaxies. However, the distribution of radio loudnesses for the mass-corrected, core-only sample is much narrower than that of the clearly bimodal total radio loudness distribution. The advantages and disadvantages of using core- or lobe-dominated radio luminosity as a measure of instantaneous jet power are discussed. We furthermore compare the core and total radio luminosities for the entire sample, as well as illustrating the importance of the mass term by comparing the AGN with a sample of black hole X-ray binaries. We conclude that if the mass-corrected core radio luminosity is a good measure of jet power, then black hole spin may have considerably less impact on jet power than previously reported, or that our sample does not include the extremes of spin. If the spread in jet power is small, then we suggest that characteristics of the ambient environment and/or the radio source age could be equally as important in producing a radio-loudyradio-quiet dichotomy seen in total radio luminosity. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.