Search

We construct the eROSITA X-ray catalog of radio galaxies discovered by the WERGS survey that is made by the cross-matching of the wide-area Subaru/HSC optical survey and VLA/FIRST 1.4 GHz radio survey. We find 393 eROSITA detected radio galaxies in the 0.5--2 keV band in the eFEDS field covering 140~deg$^2$. Thanks to the wide and medium depth eFEDS X-ray survey, the sample contains the rare and most X-ray luminous radio galaxies above the knee of the X-ray luminosity function, spanning 4422$. Those obscured and radio AGN reside in $0.4, Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

H1821+643 is the most X-ray luminous nonbeamed active galactic nucleus (AGN) of L 14–150 keV = 5.2 × 1045 erg s−1 in the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) ultrahard X-ray survey, and it is also a hyperluminous infrared (IR) galaxy L IR = 1013.2 L ⊙ residing in the center of a massive galaxy cluster, which is a unique environment achieving the rapid mass assembly of black holes (BH) and host galaxies in the local universe. We decompose the X-ray to IR spectral energy distribution (SED) into the AGN and starburst component using the SED-fitting tool CIGALE-2022.0 and show that H1821+643 consumes a large amount of cold gas ( M ̇ con ) with star formation rate of log ( SFR / M ⊙ yr − 1 ) = 3.01 ± 0.04 and BH accretion rate of log ( M ̇ BH / M ⊙ yr − 1 ) = 1.20 ± 0.05 . This high M ̇ con is larger than the cooling rate ( M ̇ cool ) of the intracluster medium, M ̇ con / M ̇ cool ≳ 1 , which is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude higher than the typical value of other systems, indicating that H1821+643 provides the unique and extreme environment of rapid gas consumption. We also show that H1821+643 has an efficient cooling path achieving from 107 to 102 K thanks to [O i] 63 μm, which is a main coolant in low temperature range (104 to 102 K) with a cooling rate of M ̇ cool = 3.2 × 10 5 M ⊙ yr − 1 , and the star-forming region extends over 40 kpc scale.

Recent observations have revealed an interesting active galactic nucleus (AGN) subclass that shows strong activity at large scales (∼1 kpc) but weaker at small scales (3–104 yr. We systematically search for such declining or fading AGNs by cross-matching the Sloan Digital Sky Survey type 1 AGN catalog at z < 0.4, covering the [O iii] λ5007 emission line, which is a tracer for the narrow-line region emission, with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mid-infrared (MIR) catalog covering the emissions from the dusty tori. Out of the 7653 sources, we found 57 AGNs whose bolometric luminosities estimated from the MIR band are at least one order of magnitude fainter than those estimated from the [O iii] λ5007 emission line. This luminosity-declining AGN candidate population shows four important properties: (1) the past AGN activity estimated from the [O iii] λ5007 line reaches approximately the Eddington limit; (2) more than 30% of the luminosity-declining AGN candidates show a large absolute variability of ΔW1 > 0.45 mag in the previous ∼10 yr at the WISE 3.4 μm band; (3) the median ratio of log([N ii] λ6584/Hα λ6563) = −0.52, suggesting a lower gas metallicity and/or higher ionization parameter compared to other AGN populations; and (4) the second-epoch spectra of the population indicate a spectral type change for 15% of the sources. This population provides insights on the possible connection between the luminosity decline that started ∼103–104 yr ago and the decline in the recent 10 yr.

9 pags., 5 figs., 3 tabs., In this Letter, we report the discovery of an ultraluminous fast-evolving transient in rest-frame UV wavelengths, MUSSES2020J, soon after its occurrence by using the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) mounted on the 8.2 m Subaru telescope. The rise time of about 5 days with an extremely high UV peak luminosity shares similarities to a handful of fast blue optical transients whose peak luminosities are comparable with the most luminous supernovae while their timescales are significantly shorter (hereafter "fast blue ultraluminous transient,"FBUT). In addition, MUSSES2020J is located near the center of a normal low-mass galaxy at a redshift of 1.063, suggesting a possible connection between the energy source of MUSSES2020J and the central part of the host galaxy. Possible physical mechanisms powering this extreme transient such as a wind-driven tidal disruption event and an interaction between supernova and circumstellar material are qualitatively discussed based on the first multiband early-phase light curve of FBUTs, although whether the scenarios can quantitatively explain the early photometric behavior of MUSSES2020J requires systematical theoretical investigations. Thanks to the ultrahigh luminosity in UV and blue optical wavelengths of these extreme transients, a promising number of FBUTs from the local to the high-z universe can be discovered through deep wide-field optical surveys in the near future., This work has been supported by the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grants JP18J12714, JP19K23456, and JP22K14069 (J.J.), JP16H01087 and JP18H04342 (J.J. and M.D.), JP18H05223 (J.J., K.M., M.D., and T.S.), JP20H00174 and JP20H04737 (K. M.), JP15H02082, JP16H06341, and JP16K05287 (T.S.), JP19H00694, JP20H00158, and JP20H00179 (M.T.), JP17K05382, JP20K04024, and JP21H04499 (K.N.). D.J. acknowledges support from the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union under grant No. 2020-1-CZ01-KA203-078200.

We report the results of a multiyear spectroscopic and photometric monitoring campaign of two luminous quasars, PG 0923+201 and PG 1001+291, both located at the high-luminosity end of the broad-line region (BLR) size-luminosity relation with optical luminosities above 1045 erg s-1. PG 0923+201 is monitored for the first time, while PG 1001+291 was previously monitored but our campaign has a much longer temporal baseline. We detect time lags of variations of the broad Hβ, Hγ, and Fe ii lines with respect to those of the 5100 Å continuum. The velocity-resolved delay map of Hβ in PG 0923+201 indicates a complicated structure with a mix of Keplerian disk-like motion and outflow, and the map of Hβ in PG 1001+291 shows a signature of Keplerian disk-like motion. Assuming a virial factor of f BLR = 1 and FWHM line widths, we measure the black hole mass to be for PG 0923+201 and for PG 1001+291. Their respective accretion rates are estimated to be and, indicating that PG 0923+201 is a sub-Eddington accretor and PG 1001+291 is a super-Eddington accretor. While the Hβ time lag of PG 0923+201 agrees with the size-luminosity relation, the time lag of PG 1001+291 shows a significant deviation, confirming that in high-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs), the BLR size depends on both luminosity and Eddington ratio. Black hole mass estimates from single-AGN spectra will be overestimated at high luminosities and redshifts if this effect is not taken into account. © 2021. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFA0400701, 2016YFA0400702), by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC-11721303, 11773029, 11833008, 11873048, 11922304, 11973029, 11991051, 11991052, 11991053, 11991054, 12003036, 12022301), by the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; YZDJ-SSW-SLH007), by the CAS Key Research Program (KJZDEW-M06), by the CAS International Partnership Program (113111KYSB20200014), and by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the CAS (XDB23000000, XDB23010400). We acknowledge the support of the staff of the Lijiang 2.4 m telescope. Funding for the telescope has been provided by the CAS and the People's Government of Yunnan Province. We also acknowledge the support of the staff of the CAHA 2.2 m telescope. Y.-R.L. acknowledges financial support from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS. K.H. acknowledges support from STFC grant ST/R000824/1. Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48 inch and the 60 inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Trinity College Dublin, and Institut national de physique nucleaire et de physique des particules. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and University of Washington. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration., With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709.

We present a comprehensive analysis of 20 years worth of multi-color photometric light curves, multi-epoch optical spectra, and X-ray data of an off-nuclear variable object SDSS1133 in Mrk 177 at $z=0.0079$. The UV-optical light curves reveal that SDSS1133 experienced four outbursts in 2001, 2014, 2019, and 2021. The persistent UV-optical luminosity in the non-outbursting state is $\sim 10^{41}$ erg/s with small-scale flux variations, and peak luminosities during the outbursts reach $\sim 10^{42}$ erg/s. The optical spectra exhibit enduring broad hydrogen Balmer P-Cygni profiles with the absorption minimum at $\sim -2,000$ km/s, indicating the presence of fast moving ejecta. {\it Chandra} detected weak X-ray emission at a $0.3-10$ keV luminosity of $L_{X} = 4 \times 10^{38}$ erg/s after the 2019 outburst. These lines of evidence suggests that SDSS1133 is an extreme luminous blue variable (LBV) star experiencing multiple giant eruptions with interactions of the ejected shell with different shells and/or circumstellar medium (CSM), and disfavors the recoiling Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) scenario suggested in the literature. We suggest that pulsational pair-instability may provide a viable explanation for the multiple energetic eruptions in SDSS1133. If the current activity of SDSS1133 is a precursor of a supernova explosion, we may be able to observe a few additional giant eruptions and then the terminal supernova explosion or collapse to a massive black hole in future observations., Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 30 pages, 17 figures, 5 tables. Table 1 and optical spectra are available online as ancillary files for this preprint

Some supernovae such as pair-instability supernovae are predicted to have the duration of more than a year in the observer frame. To constrain the rates of supernovae lasting for more than a year, we conducted a long-term deep transient survey using Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the 8.2m Subaru telescope. HSC is a wide-field (a 1.75 deg2 field-of-view) camera and it can efficiently conduct transient surveys. We observed the same 1.75 deg2 field repeatedly using the g, r, i, and z band filters with the typical depth of 26 mag for 4 seasons (from late 2016 to early 2020). Using these data, we searched for transients lasting for more than a year. Two supernovae were detected in 2 continuous seasons, one supernova was detected in 3 continuous seasons, but no transients lasted for all 4 seasons searched. The discovery rate of supernovae lasting for more than a year with the typical limiting magnitudes of 26 mag is constrained to be 1.4^{+1.3}_{-0.7}(stat.)^{+0.2}_{-0.3}(sys.) events deg-2 yr-1. All the long-lasting supernovae we found are likely Type IIn supernovae and our results indicate that about 40% of Type IIn supernovae have long-lasting light curves. No plausible pair-instability supernova candidates lasting for more than a year are discovered. By comparing the survey results and survey simulations, we constrain the luminous pair-instability supernova rate up to z ~ 3 should be of the order of 100 Gpc-3 yr-1 at most, which is 0.01 - 0.1 per cent of the core-collapse supernova rate., 18 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables, accepted by The Astrophysical Journal

The dust reverberation mapping is one of powerful methods to investigate the structure of the dusty tori in AGNs, and it has been performed on more than a hundred type 1 AGNs. However, no clear results have been reported on type 2 AGNs because their strong optical-UV extinction completely hides their accretion disc emission. Here we focus on an X-ray-bright type 2 AGN, NGC 2110, and utilize 2-20 keV X-ray variation monitored by MAXI to trace disc emission, instead of optical-UV variation. Comparing it with light curves in the WISE infrared (IR) W1 band ($\lambda = 3.4$ $\mu$m) and W2 band ($\lambda = 4.6$ $\mu$m) with cross-correlation analyses, we found candidates of the dust reverberation time lag at $\sim60$ days, $\sim130$ days, and $\sim1250$ days between the X-ray flux variation and those of the IR bands. By examining the best-fitting X-ray and IR light curves with the derived time lags, we found that the time lag of $\sim130$ days is most favoured. With this time lag, the relation between the time lag and luminosity of NGC 2110 is consistent with those in type 1 AGNs, suggesting that the dust reverberation in NGC 2110 mainly originates in hot dust in the torus innermost region, the same as in type 1 AGNs. As demonstrated by the present study, X-ray and IR simultaneous monitoring can be a promising tool to perform the dust reverberation mapping on type 2 AGNs., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, accepted for the publication in MNRAS

Observed extinction curves of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are significantly different from those observed in the Milky Way. The observations require preferential removal of small grains at the AGN environment; however, the physics for this remains unclear. In this paper, we propose that dust destruction by charging, or Coulomb explosion, may be responsible for AGN extinction curves. Harsh AGN radiation makes a dust grain highly charged through photoelectric emission, and grain fission via the Coulomb explosion occurs when the electrostatic tensile stress of a charge grain exceeds its tensile strength. We show that the Coulomb explosion can preferentially remove both small silicate and graphite grains and successfully reproduce both flat extinction curves and the absence of 2175\AA~bump., Comment: 8 pages, 6 Figures; Accepted for publication in ApJ

Radar and optical simultaneous observations of meteors are important to understand the size distribution of the interplanetary dust. However, faint meteors detected by high power large aperture radar observations, which are typically as faint as 10 mag. in optical, have not been detected until recently in optical observations, mainly due to insufficient sensitivity of the optical observations. In this paper, two radar and optical simultaneous observations were organized. The first observation was carried out in 2009 to 2010 using Middle and Upper Atmosphere Radar (MU radar) and an image-intensified CCD camera. The second observation was carried out in 2018 using the MU radar and a mosaic CMOS camera, Tomo-e Gozen, mounted on the 1.05-m Kiso Schmidt Telescope. In total, 331 simultaneous meteors were detected. The relationship between radar cross sections and optical V-band magnitudes was well approximated by a linear function. A transformation function from the radar cross section to the V-band magnitude was derived for sporadic meteors. The transformation function was applied to about 150,000 meteors detected by the MU radar in 2009--2015, large part of which are sporadic, and a luminosity function was derived in the magnitude range of $-1.5$ to $9.5$ mag. The luminosity function was well approximated by a single power-law function with the population index of $r = 3.52{\pm}0.12$. The present observation indicates that the MU radar has capability to detect interplanetary dust of $10^{-5}$ to $10^{0}$ g in mass as meteors., Comment: Accepted for publication in Planetary & Space Science. 20 pages, 8 figures

We present the stellar population and ionized-gas outflow properties of ultra-luminous IR galaxies (ULIRGs) at $z=$ 0.1-1.0, which are selected from AKARI FIR all-sky survey. We construct a catalog of 1077 ULIRGs to examine feedback effect after major mergers. 202 out of the 1077 ULIRGs are spectroscopically identified by SDSS and Subaru/FOCAS observations. Thanks to deeper depth and higher resolution of AKARI compared to the previous IRAS survey, and reliable identification from WISE MIR pointing, the sample is unique in identifying optically-faint (i$\sim$20) IR-bright galaxies, which could be missed in previous surveys. A self-consistent spectrum-SED decomposition method, which constrains stellar population properties in SED modeling based on spectral fitting results, has been employed for 149 ULIRGs whose optical continua are dominated by host galaxies. They are massive galaxies ($M_{\rm star}\sim10^{11}$-$10^{12}$ M$_{\odot}$), associated with intense star formation activities (SFR $\sim$ 200-2000 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$). The sample covers a range of AGN bolometric luminosity of $10^{10}$-$10^{13}$ L$_{\odot}$, and the outflow velocity measured from [OIII] 5007A line shows a correlation with AGN luminosity. Eight galaxies show extremely fast outflows with velocity up to 1500-2000 km s$^{-1}$. However, the co-existence of vigorous starbursts and strong outflows suggests the star formation has not been quenched during the ULIRG phase. By deriving stellar mass and mass fraction of young stellar population, we find no significant discrepancies between stellar properties of ULIRGs with weak and powerful AGNs. The results are not consistent with the merger-induced evolutionary scenario, which predicts that SF-dominated ULIRGs show smaller stellar mass and younger stellar populations compared to AGN-dominated ULIRGs., 28 pages, 25 figures, 7 tables; accepted by ApJ

In order to construct a sample of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs, with infrared luminosity, $L_{\rm IR} > 10^{12}$ L$_{\odot}$) at 0.5 < z < 1, we are conducting an optical follow-up program for bright 90-$��$m FIR sources with a faint optical (i < 20) counterpart selected in the AKARI Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS) Bright Source catalog (Ver.2). AKARI-FIS-V2 J0916248+073034, identified as a ULIRG at z = 0.49 in the spectroscopic follow-up observation, indicates signatures of an extremely strong outflow in its emission line profiles. Its [OIII] 5007�� emission line shows FWHM of 1830 km s$^{-1}$ and velocity shift of -770 km s$^{-1}$ in relative to the stellar absorption lines. Furthermore, low-ionization [OII] 3726�� 3729�� doublet also shows large FWHM of 910 km s$^{-1}$ and velocity shift of -380 km s$^{-1}$. After the removal of an unresolved nuclear component, the long-slit spectroscopy 2D image possibly shows that the outflow extends to radius of 4 kpc. The mass outflow and energy ejection rates are estimated to be 500 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$ and $4\times10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$, respectively, which imply that the outflow is among the most powerful ones observed in ULIRGs and QSOs at 0.3 < z < 1.6. The co-existence of the strong outflow and intense star formation (star formation rate of 990 M$_{\odot}$ yr$^{-1}$) indicates that the feedback of the strong outflow has not severely affect the star-forming region of the galaxy., 20 pages, 18 figures, accepted to be published in PASJ

Rapidly evolving transients form a new class of transients which show shorter timescales of the light curves than those of typical core-collapse and thermonuclear supernovae. We performed a systematic search for rapidly evolving transients using the deep data taken with the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program Transient Survey. By measuring the timescales of the light curves of 1824 transients, we identified 5 rapidly evolving transients. Our samples are found in a wide range of redshifts (0.3 $\le$ z $\le$ 1.5) and peak absolute magnitudes ($-$17 $\ge$ $M_i$ $\ge$ $-$20). The properties of the light curves are similar to those of the previously discovered rapidly evolving transients. They show a relatively blue spectral energy distribution, with the best-fit blackbody of 8,000 - 18,000 K. We show that some of the transients require power sources other than the radioactive decays of $^{56}$Ni because of their high peak luminosities and short timescales. The host galaxies of all the samples are star-forming galaxies, suggesting a massive star origin for the rapidly evolving transients. The event rate is roughly estimated to be $\sim$4,000 events yr$^{-1}$ Gpc$^{-3}$, which is about 1 $\%$ of core-collapse supernovae., 19 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We study variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by using the deep optical multiband photometry data obtained from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC SSP) survey in the COSMOS field. The images analyzed here were taken with 8, 10, 13, and 15 epochs over three years in the $g$, $r$, $i$, and $z$ bands, respectively. We identified 491 robust variable AGN candidates, down to $i=25$ mag and with redshift up to $4.26$. Ninety percent of the variability-selected AGNs are individually identified with the X-ray sources detected in the Chandra COSMOS Legacy survey. We investigate their properties in variability by using structure function analysis and find that the structure function for low-luminosity AGNs ($L_{\mathrm{bol}}\lesssim10^{45}$ erg s$^{-1}$) shows a positive correlation with luminosity, which is the opposite trend for the luminous quasars. This trend is likely to be caused by larger contribution of the host galaxy light for lower-luminosity AGNs. Using the model templates of galaxy spectra, we evaluate the amount of host galaxy contribution to the structure function analysis and find that dominance of the young stellar population is needed to explain the observed luminosity dependence. This suggests that low-luminosity AGNs at $0.8\lesssim z\lesssim1.8$ are predominantly hosted in star-forming galaxies. The X-ray stacking analysis reveals the significant emission from the individually X-ray undetected AGNs in our variability-selected sample. The stacked samples show very large hardness ratios in their stacked X-ray spectrum, which suggests that these optically variable sources have large soft X-ray absorption by dust-free gas., 27 pages, 22 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

We report the discovery of an SN1988Z-like type IIn supernova KISS15s found in a low-mass star-forming galaxy at redshift z=0.038 during the course of the Kiso Supernova Survey (KISS). KISS15s shows long-duration optical continuum and emission line light curves, indicating that KISS15s is powered by a continuous interaction between the expanding ejecta and dense circumstellar medium (CSM). The H$\alpha$ emission line profile can be decomposed into four Gaussians of narrow, intermediate, blue-shifted intermediate, and broad velocity width components, with a full width at half maximum of $\lesssim 100$, $\sim 2,000$, and $\sim 14,000$ km s${}^{-1}$ for the narrow, intermediate, and broad components, respectively. The presence of the blue-shifted intermediate component, of which the line-of-sight velocity relative to the systemic velocity is about $-5,000$ km s${}^{-1}$, suggests that the ejecta-CSM interaction region has an inhomogeneous morphology and anisotropic expansion velocity. We found that KISS15s shows increasing infrared continuum emission, which can be interpreted as hot dust thermal emission of $T \sim 1,200$ K from newly formed dust in a cool, dense shell in the ejecta-CSM interaction region. The progenitor mass-loss rate, inferred from bolometric luminosity, is $\dot{M} \sim 0.4 M_{\odot} \text{yr}^{-1} (v_{w}/40 \text{km}~\text{s}^{-1})$, where $v_{w}$ is the progenitor's stellar wind velocity. This implies that the progenitor of KISS15s was a red supergiant star or a luminous blue variable that had experienced a large mass-loss in the centuries before the explosion., Comment: 43 pages, 29 figures, and 12 tables, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) 2019 January 15

From 2013 April to 2014 April, we performed an X-ray and optical simultaneous monitoring of the type 1.5 Seyfert galaxy NGC 3516. It employed Suzaku, and 5 Japanese ground-based telescopes, the Pirka, Kiso Schmidt, Nayuta, MITSuME, and the Kanata telescopes. The Suzaku observations were conducted seven times with various intervals ranging from days, weeks, to months, with an exposure of $\sim50$ ksec each. The optical $B$-band observations not only covered those of Suzaku almost simultaneously, but also followed the source as frequently as possible. As a result, NGC 3516 was found in its faint phase with the 2-10 keV flux of $0.21-2.70 \times 10^{-11}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$. The 2-45 keV X-ray spectra were composed of a dominant variable hard power-law continuum with a photon index of $\sim1.7$, and a non-relativistic reflection component with a prominent Fe-K$\alpha$ emission line. Producing the $B$-band light curve by differential image photometry, we found that the $B$-band flux changed by $\sim2.7 \times 10^{-11}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$, which is comparable to the X-ray variation, and detected a significant flux correlation between the hard power-law component in X-rays and the $B$-band radiation, for the first time in NGC 3516. By examining their correlation, we found that the X-ray flux preceded that of $B$ band by $2.0^{+0.7}_{-0.6}$ days ($1\sigma$ error). Although this result supports the X-ray reprocessing model, the derived lag is too large to be explained by the standard view which assumes a "lamppost"-type X-ray illuminator located near a standard accretion disk. Our results are better explained by assuming a hot accretion flow and a truncated disk., Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal

The physical mechanisms of the quasar ultraviolet (UV)-optical variability are not well understood despite the long history of observations. Recently, Dexter & Agol presented a model of quasar UV-optical variability, which assumes large local temperature fluctuations in the quasar accretion discs. This inhomogeneous accretion disc model is claimed to describe not only the single-band variability amplitude, but also microlensing size constraints and the quasar composite spectral shape. In this work, we examine the validity of the inhomogeneous accretion disc model in the light of quasar UV-optical spectral variability by using five-band multi-epoch light curves for nearly 9 000 quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82 region. By comparing the values of the intrinsic scatter $��_{\text{int}}$ of the two-band magnitude-magnitude plots for the SDSS quasar light curves and for the simulated light curves, we show that Dexter & Agol's inhomogeneous accretion disc model cannot explain the tight inter-band correlation often observed in the SDSS quasar light curves. This result leads us to conclude that the local temperature fluctuations in the accretion discs are not the main driver of the several years' UV-optical variability of quasars, and consequently, that the assumption that the quasar accretion discs have large localized temperature fluctuations is not preferred from the viewpoint of the UV-optical spectral variability., 14 pages, 7 figures and 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS 2015 February 4

著者人数: 59名, Accepted: 2014-08-26, 資料番号: SA1005030000

We present the H$\alpha$ intensity map of the host galaxy of the repeating fast radio burst FRB 121102 at a redshift of z=0.193 obtained with the AO-assisted Kyoto 3DII optical integral-field unit mounted on the 8.2-m Subaru Telescope. We detected a compact H$\alpha$-emitting (i.e., star-forming) region in the galaxy, which has a much smaller angular size [$< 0".57$ (1.9 kpc) at full width at half maximum (FWHM)] than the extended stellar continuum emission region determined by the Gemini/GMOS z'-band image [$\simeq 1".4$ (4.6 kpc) at FWHM with ellipticity b/a=0.45]. The spatial offset between the centroid of the H$\alpha$ emission region and the position of the radio bursts is $0".08 \pm 0".02$ ($0.26 \pm 0.07$ kpc), indicating that FRB 121102 is located within the star-forming region. This close spatial association of FRB 121102 with the star-forming region is consistent with expectations from young pulsar/magnetar models for FRB 121102, and it also suggests that the observed H$\alpha$ emission region can make a major dispersion measure (DM) contribution to the host galaxy DM component of FRB 121102. Nevertheless, the largest possible value of the DM contribution from the H$\alpha$ emission region inferred from our observations still requires a significant amount of ionized baryons in intergalactic medium (the so-called `missing' baryons) as the DM source of FRB 121102, and we obtain a 90\% confidence level lower limit on the cosmic baryon density in the intergalactic medium in the low-redshift universe as $\Omega_{IGM} > 0.012$., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, and 1 table, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal 2017 June 20

We examine the optical photometric and polarimetric variability of the luminous type 1 non-blazar quasar 3C 323.1 (PG 1545+210). Two optical spectro-polarimetric measurements taken during the periods 1996$-$98 and 2003 combined with a $V$-band imaging polarimetric measurement taken in 2002 reveal that (1) as noted in the literature, the polarization of 3C 323.1 is confined only to the continuum emission, that is, the emission from the broad line region is unpolarized; (2) the polarized flux spectra show evidence of a time-variable broad absorption feature in the wavelength range of the Balmer continuum and other recombination lines; (3) weak variability in the polarization position angle ($PA$) of $\sim$ 4 deg over a time-scale of 4$-$6 years is observed; and (4) the V-band total flux and the polarized flux show highly correlated variability over a time-scale of one year. Taking the above-mentioned photometric and polarimetric variability properties and the results from previous studies into consideration, we propose a geometrical model for the polarization source in 3C 323.1, in which an equatorial absorbing region and an axi-asymmetric equatorial electron-scattering region are assumed to be located between the accretion disc and the broad line region. The scattering/absorbing regions can perhaps be attributed to the accretion disc wind or flared disc surface, but further polarimetric monitoring observations for 3C~323.1 and other quasars with continuum-confined polarization are needed to probe the true physical origins of these regions., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures and 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS 2017 January 10

We investigate the UV-optical (longward of Ly$\alpha$ 1216\AA) spectral variability of nearly 9000 quasars ($0, Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures and 2 tables, matches version published in ApJ with a typo corrected in caption of Figure 14 (\alpha_\nu ---> \alpha_\lambda)

Optical spectropolarimetry carried out by Kishimoto et al. (2004) has shown that several luminous type 1 quasars show a strong decrease of the polarized continuum flux in the rest-frame near-UV wavelengths of $\lambda, Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures and 3 tables, accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ) 2016 April 13

We present a new method to effectively select objects which may be low-mass active black holes (BHs) at galaxy centers using high-cadence optical imaging data, and our first spectroscopic identification of an active 2.7x10^6 Msun BH at z=0.164. This active BH was originally selected due to its rapid optical variability, from a few hours to a day, based on Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam~(HSC) g-band imaging data taken with 1-hour cadence. Broad and narrow H-alpha and many other emission lines are detected in our optical spectra taken with Subaru FOCAS, and the BH mass is measured via the broad H-alpha emission line width (1,880 km s^{-1}) and luminosity (4.2x10^{40} erg s^{-1}) after careful correction for the atmospheric absorption around 7,580-7,720A. We measure the Eddington ratio to be as low as 0.05, considerably smaller than those in a previous SDSS sample with similar BH mass and redshift, which indicates one of the strong potentials of our Subaru survey. The g-r color and morphology of the extended component indicate that the host galaxy is a star-forming galaxy. We also show effectiveness of our variability selection for low-mass active BHs., 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. accepted for publication in PASJ