Galaxy zoo: The fundamentally different co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their early- and late-type host galaxies

Astrophysical Journal 711:1 (2010) 284-302

Authors:

K Schawinski, CM Urry, S Virani, P Coppi, SP Bamford, E Treister, CJ Lintott, M Sarzi, WC Keel, S Kaviraj, CN Cardamone, KL Masters, NP Ross, D Andreescu, P Murray, RC Nichol, MJ Raddick, A Slosar, AS Szalay, D Thomas, J Vandenberg

Abstract:

We use data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and visual classifications of morphology from the Galaxy Zoo project to study black hole growth in the nearby universe (z < 0.05) and to break down the active galactic nucleus (AGN) host galaxy population by color, stellar mass, and morphology. We find that the black hole growth at luminosities >1040erg s-1 in early- and late-type galaxies is fundamentally different. AGN host galaxies as a population have a broad range of stellar masses (1010-10 11M ⊙), reside in the green valley of the color-mass diagram and their central black holes have median masses around 10 6.5M ⊙. However, by comparing early- and late-type AGN host galaxies to their non-active counterparts, we find several key differences: in early-type galaxies, it is preferentially the galaxies with the least massive black holes that are growing, while in late-type galaxies, it is preferentially the most massive black holes that are growing. The duty cycle of AGNs in early-type galaxies is strongly peaked in the green valley below the low-mass end (1010M ⊙) of the red sequence at stellar masses where there is a steady supply of blue cloud progenitors. The duty cycle of AGNs in late-type galaxies on the other hand peaks in massive (10 11M ⊙) green and red late-types which generally do not have a corresponding blue cloud population of similar mass. At high-Eddington ratios (L/L Edd>0.1), the only population with a substantial fraction of AGNs are the low-mass green valley early-type galaxies. Finally, the Milky Way likely resides in the "sweet spot" on the color-mass diagram where the AGN duty cycle of late-type galaxies is highest. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of the role of AGNs in the evolution of galaxies. © 2010 The American Astronomical Society.

H-ATLAS: PACS imaging for the Science Demonstration Phase

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 409:1 (2010) 38-47

Authors:

E Ibar, RJ Ivison, A Cava, G Rodighiero, S Buttiglione, P Temi, D Frayer, J Fritz, L Leeuw, M Baes, E Rigby, A Verma, S Serjeant, T Müller, R Auld, A Dariush, L Dunne, S Eales, S Maddox, P Panuzzo, E Pascale, M Pohlen, D Smith, GD Zotti, M Vaccari, R Hopwood, A Cooray, D Burgarella, M Jarvis

Abstract:

We describe the reduction of data taken with the PACS instrument on board the Herschel Space Observatory in the Science Demonstration Phase of the Herschel-ATLAS (H-ATLAS) survey, specifically data obtained for a 4 × 4 deg2 region using Herschel's fast-scan (60 arcsec s-1) parallel mode. We describe in detail a pipeline for data reduction using customized procedures within hipe from data retrieval to the production of science-quality images. We found that the standard procedure for removing cosmic ray glitches also removed parts of bright sources and so implemented an effective two-stage process to minimize these problems. The pronounced 1/f noise is removed from the timelines using 3.4- and 2.5-arcmin boxcar high-pass filters at 100 and 160 μm. Empirical measurements of the point spread function (PSF) are used to determine the encircled energy fraction as a function of aperture size. For the 100- and 160-μm bands, the effective PSFs are ~9 and ~13 arcsec (FWHM), and the 90-per cent encircled energy radii are 13 and 18 arcsec. Astrometric accuracy is good to ≤2 arcsec. The noise in the final maps is correlated between neighbouring pixels and rather higher than advertised prior to launch. For a pair of cross-scans, the 5σ point-source sensitivities are 125-165 mJy for 9-13 arcsec radius apertures at 100 μm and 150-240 mJy for 13-18 arcsec radius apertures at 160 μm. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.

Herschel-ATLAS: Far-infrared properties of radio-selected galaxies

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 409:1 (2010) 122-131

Authors:

MJ Hardcastle, JS Virdee, MJ Jarvis, DG Bonfield, L Dunne, S Rawlings, JA Stevens, NM Christopher, I Heywood, T Mauch, D Rigopoulou, A Verma, IK Baldry, SP Bamford, S Buttiglione, A Cava, DL Clements, A Cooray, SM Croom, A Dariush, G De Zotti, S Eales, J Fritz, DT Hill, D Hughes, R Hopwood, E Ibar, RJ Ivison, DH Jones, J Loveday, SJ Maddox, MJ Michałowski, M Negrello, P Norberg, M Pohlen, M Prescott, EE Rigby, ASG Robotham, G Rodighiero, D Scott, R Sharp, DJB Smith, P Temi, E Van Kampen

Abstract:

We use the Herschel-Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (ATLAS) science demonstration data to investigate the star formation properties of radio-selected galaxies in the GAMA-9h field as a function of radio luminosity and redshift. Radio selection at the lowest radio luminosities, as expected, selects mostly starburst galaxies. At higher radio luminosities, where the population is dominated by active galactic nuclei (AGN), we find that some individual objects are associated with high far-infrared luminosities. However, the far-infrared properties of the radio-loud population are statistically indistinguishable from those of a comparison population of radio-quiet galaxies matched in redshift and K-band absolute magnitude. There is thus no evidence that the host galaxies of these largely low-luminosity (Fanaroff-Riley class I), and presumably low-excitation, AGN, as a population, have particularly unusual star formation histories. Models in which the AGN activity in higher luminosity, high-excitation radio galaxies is triggered by major mergers would predict a luminosity-dependent effect that is not seen in our data (which only span a limited range in radio luminosity) but which may well be detectable with the full Herschel-ATLAS data set. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.

IShocks: X-ray binary jets with an internal shocks model

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 401:1 (2010) 394-404

Authors:

O Jamil, RP Fender, CR Kaiser

Abstract:

In the following paper, we present an internal shocks model, iShocks, for simulating a variety of relativistic jet scenarios; these scenarios can range from a single ejection event to an almost continuous jet, and are highly user configurable. Although the primary focus in the following paper is black hole X-ray binary jets, the model is scale and source independent and could be used for supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei or other flows such as jets from neutron stars. Discrete packets of plasma (or 'shells') are used to simulate the jet volume. A two-shell collision gives rise to an internal shock, which acts as an electron re-energization mechanism. Using a pseudo-random distribution of the shell properties, the results show how for the first time it is possible to reproduce a flat/inverted spectrum (associated with compact radio jets) in a conical jet whilst taking the adiabatic energy losses into account. Previous models have shown that electron re-acceleration is essential in order to obtain a flat spectrum from an adiabatic conical jet: multiple internal shocks prove to be efficient in providing this re-energization. We also show how the high-frequency turnover/break in the spectrum is correlated with the jet power, νb ∝ L∼0.6W, and the flat-spectrum synchrotron flux is correlated with the total jet power, F ν ∝ L∼1.4W. Both the correlations are in agreement with previous analytical predictions. © 2009 RAS.

Identification and filtering of uncharacteristic noise in the CMS hadron calorimeter

Journal of Instrumentation 5:3 (2010)

Authors:

S Chatrchyan, V Khachatryan, AM Sirunyan, W Adam, B Arnold, H Bergauer, T Bergauer, M Dragicevic, M Eichberger, J Erö, M Friedl, R Frühwirth, VM Ghete, J Hammer, S Hansel, M Hoch, N Hörmann, J Hrubec, M Jeitler, G Kasieczka, K Kastner, M Krammer, D Liko, I De Magrans Abril, I Mikulec, F Mittermayr, B Neuherz, M Oberegger, M Padrta, M Pernicka, H Rohringer, S Schmid, R Schöfbeck, T Schreiner, R Stark, H Steininger, J Strauss, A Taurok, F Teischinger, T Themel, D Uhl, P Wagner, W Waltenberger, G Walzel, E Widl, CE Wulz, V Chekhovsky, O Dvornikov, I Emeliantchik, A Litomin, V Makarenko, I Marfin, V Mossolov, N Shumeiko, A Solin, R Stefanovitch, J Suarez Gonzalez, A Tikhonov, A Fedorov, A Karneyeu, M Korzhik, V Panov, R Zuyeuski, P Kuchinsky, W Beaumont, L Benucci, M Cardaci, EA De Wolf, E Delmeire, D Druzhkin, M Hashemi, X Janssen, T Maes, L Mucibello, S Ochesanu, R Rougny, M Selvaggi, H Van Haevermaet, P Van Mechelen, N Van Remortel, V Adler, S Beauceron, S Blyweert, J D'Hondt, S De Weirdt, O Devroede, J Heyninck, A Kalogeropoulos, J Maes, M Maes, MU Mozer, S Tavernier, W Van Doninck, P Van Mulders, I Villella, O Bouhali, EC Chabert, O Charaf, B Clerbaux, G De Lentdecker

Abstract:

Commissioning studies of the CMS hadron calorimeter have identified sporadic uncharacteristic noise and a small number of malfunctioning calorimeter channels. Algorithms have been developed to identify and address these problems in the data. The methods have been tested on cosmic ray muon data, calorimeter noise data, and single beam data collected with CMS in 2008. The noise rejection algorithms can be applied to LHC collision data at the trigger level or in the offline analysis. The application of the algorithms at the trigger level is shown to remove 90% of noise events with fake missing transverse energy above 100 GeV, which is sufficient for the CMS physics trigger operation. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd and SISSA.