Journal
ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL
Volume 141, Issue 6, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/141/6/182
Keywords
quasars: emission lines; quasars: general
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [AST-0507259, AST-0607634]
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Using the largest homogeneous quasar sample with high-quality optical spectra and robust radio morphology classifications assembled to date, we investigate relationships between radio and optical properties with unprecedented statistical power. The sample consists of 4714 radio quasars from FIRST with S-20 >= 2 mJy and with spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Radio morphology classes include core-only (core), core-lobe (lobe), core-jet (jet), lobe-core-lobe (triple), and double-lobe. Electronic tables of the quasar samples, along with spectral composites for individual morphology classes, are made available. We examine the optical colors of these sub-samples and find that radio quasars with core emission unresolved by FIRST (on similar to 5 '' scale) have a redder color distribution than radio-quiet quasars (S-20 less than or similar to 1 mJy); other classes of radio quasars have optical color distributions similar to the radio-quiet quasars. This analysis also suggests that optical colors of z less than or similar to 2.7 SDSS quasars are not strongly (<0.1 mag) biased blue. We show that the radio core-to-lobe flux density ratio (R) and the radio-to-optical (i-band) ratio of the quasar core (R-I) are correlated, which supports the hypothesis that both parameters are indicative of line-of-sight orientation. We investigate spectral line equivalent widths (EWs) as a function of R and R-I, including the O[III] narrow line doublet and the CIV lambda 1549 and Mg II lambda 2799 broad lines. We find that the rest EWs of the broad lines correlate positively with R-I at the 4 sigma-8 sigma level. However, we find no strong dependence of EW on R, in contrast to previously published results. A possible interpretation of these results is that EWs of quasar emission lines increase as the line-of-sight angle to the radio-jet axis decreases. These results are in stark contrast to commonly accepted orientation-based theories, which suggest that continuum emission should increase as the angle to the radio-jet axis decreases, resulting in smaller EWs of emission lines (assumed isotropic). Finally, we observe the Baldwin effect in our sample and find that it does not depend strongly on quasar radio morphology.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available