Detecting cosmic rays with the LOFAR radio telescope

Astronomy and Astrophysics 560 (2013)

Authors:

P Schellart, A Nelles, S Buitink, A Corstanje, JE Enriquez, H Falcke, W Frieswijk, JR Horandel, A Horneffer, CW James, M Krause, M Mevius, O Scholten, S Ter Veen, S Thoudam, M Van Den Akker, A Alexov, J Anderson, IM Avruch, L Bahren, R Beck, ME Bell, P Bennema, MJ Bentum, G Bernardi, P Best, J Bregman, F Breitling, M Brentjens, J Broderick, M Bruggen, B Ciardi, A Coolen, F De Gasperin, E De Geus, A De Jong, M De Vos, S Duscha, J Eisloffel, RA Fallows, C Ferrari, MA Garrett, J Grießmeier, T Grit, JP Hamaker, TE Hassall, G Heald, JWT Hessels, M Hoeft, HA Holties, M Iacobelli, E Juette, A Karastergiou, W Klijn, J Kohler, VI Kondratiev, M Kramer, M Kuniyoshi, G Kuper, P Maat, G Macario, G Mann, S Markoff, D McKay-Bukowski, JP McKean, JCA Miller-Jones, JD Mol, DD Mulcahy, H Munk, R Nijboer, MJ Norden, E Orru, R Overeem, H Paas, M Pandey-Pommier, R Pizzo, AG Polatidis, A Renting, JW Romein, H Rottgering, A Schoenmakers, D Schwarz, J Sluman, O Smirnov, C Sobey, BW Stappers, M Steinmetz, J Swinbank, Y Tang, C Tasse, C Toribio, J Van Leeuwen, R Van Nieuwpoort, RJ Van Weeren, N Vermaas, R Vermeulen, C Vocks, C Vogt, RAMJ Wijers, SJ Wijnholds

Abstract:

The low frequency array (LOFAR), is the first radio telescope designed with the capability to measure radio emission from cosmic-ray induced air showers in parallel with interferometric observations. In the first ~2 years of observing, 405 cosmic-ray events in the energy range of 1016-1018 eV have been detected in the band from 30-80 MHz. Each of these air showers is registered with up to ~1000 independent antennas resulting in measurements of the radio emission with unprecedented detail. This article describes the dataset, as well as the analysis pipeline, and serves as a reference for future papers based on these data. All steps necessary to achieve a full reconstruction of the electric field at every antenna position are explained, including removal of radio frequency interference, correcting for the antenna response and identification of the pulsed signal. © ESO, 2013.

Herschel observations and a model for IRAS 08572+3915: A candidate for the most luminous infrared galaxy in the local (z < 0.2) Universe

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters 437:1 (2013)

Authors:

A Efstathiou, C Pearson, D Farrah, D Rigopoulou, J Gracía-Carpio, A Verma, HWW Spoon, J Afonso, J Bernard-Salas, DL Clements, A Cooray, D Cormier, M Etxaluze, J Fischer, E Gonźalez-Alfonso, P Hurley, V Lebouteiller, SJ Oliver, M Rowan-Robinson, E Sturm

Abstract:

We present Herschel photometry and spectroscopy, carried out as part of the Herschel ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) survey, and a model for the infrared to submillimetre emission of the ULIRG IRAS 08572+3915. This source shows one of the deepest known silicate absorption features and no polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emission. The model suggests that this object is powered by an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a fairly smooth torus viewed almost edge-on and a very young starburst. According to our model, the AGN contributes about 90 per cent of the total luminosity of 1.1 × 1013 L⊙, which is about a factor of 5 higher than previous estimates. The large correction of the luminosity is due to theanisotropy of the emission of the best-fitting torus. Similar corrections may be necessary for other local and high-z analogues. This correction implies that IRAS 08572+3915 at a redshift of 0.058 35 may be the nearest hyperluminous infrared galaxy and probably the most luminous infrared galaxy in the local (z < 0.2) Universe. IRAS 08572+3915 shows a low ratio of [C II] to IR luminosity (log L[C II]/LIR < -3.8) and a [OI]63 μm to [CII]158 μm line ratio of about 1 that supports the model presented in this Letter ©2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Radio Detections During Two State Transitions of the Intermediate Mass Black Hole HLX-1

(2013)

Authors:

Natalie Webb, David Cseh, Emil Lenc, Olivier Godet, Didier Barret, Stephane Corbel, Sean Farrell, Rob Fender, Neil Gehrels, Ian Heywood

New constraints on the cooling of the Central Compact Object in Cas A

(2013)

Authors:

B Posselt, GG Pavlov, V Suleimanov, O Kargaltsev

H-ATLAS: Estimating redshifts of herschel sources from sub-mm fluxes

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 435:4 (2013) 2753-2763

Authors:

EA Pearson, S Eales, L Dunne, J Gonzalez-Nuevo, S Maddox, JE Aguirre, M Baes, AJ Baker, N Bourne, CM Bradford, CJR Clark, A Cooray, A Dariush, G De Zotti, S Dye, D Frayer, HL Gomez, AI Harris, R Hopwood, E Ibar, RJ Ivison, M Jarvis, M Krips, A Lapi, RE Lupu, MJ Michałowski, M Rosenman, D Scott, E Valiante, I Valtchanov, P van der Werf, JD Vieira

Abstract:

Upon its completion, the Herschel Astrophysics Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) will be the largest sub-millimetre survey to date, detecting close to half-a-million sources. It will only be possible to measure spectroscopic redshifts for a small fraction of these sources. However, if the rest-frame spectral energy distribution (SED) of a typical H-ATLAS source is known, this SED and the observed Herschel fluxes can be used to estimate the redshifts of the H-ATLAS sources without spectroscopic redshifts. In this paper, we use a sub-set of 40 H-ATLAS sources with previously measured redshifts in the range 0.5 < z < 4.2 to derive a suitable average template for high-redshift H-ATLAS sources. We find that a template with two dust components (Tc= 23.9K, Th= 46.9K and ratio of mass of cold dust to mass of warm dust of 30.1) provides a good fit to the rest-frame fluxes of the sources in our calibration sample. We use a jackknife technique to estimate the accuracy of the redshifts estimated with this template, finding a root mean square of Δz/(1 + z) = 0.26. For sources for which there is prior information that they lie at z > 1, we estimate that the rms of Δz/(1 + z) = 0.12. We have used this template to estimate the redshift distribution for the sources detected in the H-ATLAS equatorial fields, finding a bimodal distribution with a mean redshift of 1.2, 1.9 and 2.5 for 250, 350 and 500 μm selected sources, respectively. © 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.