Researchers detect 14 new active galactic nuclei

Utilizing the Spectrum–RG (SRG) spacecraft and two ground-based telescopes, Russian astronomers have noticed X-ray sources within the japanese Galactic sky. The observational marketing campaign resulted within the detection of 14 new lively galactic nuclei. The findings had been offered June 6 within the journal Astronomy Letters.

An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact area on the middle of a galaxy, extra luminous than the encompassing galaxy mild. AGNs are very energetic due both to the presence of a black hole or star formation exercise on the core of the galaxy.

Astronomers typically divide AGNs into two teams based mostly on emission line options. Kind 1 AGNs present broad and slender emission traces, whereas solely slender emission traces are current in Kind 2 AGNs.

Not too long ago, a staff of astronomers led by Grigory Uskov of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, has investigated arduous X-ray sources within the japanese Galactic half of the sky. For this objective, they employed SRG’s ART-XC and eROSITA telescopes, in addition to the 1.6-m AZT-33IK telescope on the Sayan Observatory in Russia and the 1.5-m Russian–Turkish telescope (RTT-150) on the TUBITAK Nationwide Observatory in Turkey.

“We current the outcomes of our identification of 14 X-ray sources detected within the japanese Galactic sky (0 < l < 180°) within the 4–12 keV vitality band on the mixed map of the primary 5 all-sky surveys (from December 2019 to March 2022) with the Mikhail Pavlinsky ART-XC telescope onboard the SRG observatory,” the researchers wrote within the paper.

The examine detected 14 new AGNs comparatively close by, at redshifts between 0.015 and 0.238. All of them are hosted by Seyfert galaxies—one of many NLSy1 sort, three of the Sy1 sort, 4 had been categorized as Sy1.9, and 6 as Sy2. The X-ray luminosities of those lively galactic nuclei had been measured to be throughout the vary of 1–100 tredecillion erg/s, which is typical for AGNs at the moment epoch.

The astronomers constructed broadband (0.2–12 keV) X-ray spectra and managed to derive black hole plenty and bolometric luminosities for 4 of the newfound AGNs. These values had been discovered to be 12–260 million solar masses, and 170–1,800 tredecillion erg/s, respectively. Additionally they discovered that in 4 AGNs the intrinsic absorption exceeds 1,022 cm⁻².

Summing up the outcomes, the authors of the paper famous how vital their discovery is for the continuing AGN search. They hope to construct a big pattern of those objects based mostly on their arduous X-ray emission.

“The outcome obtained will assist to acquire a big (about 2,000 objects), statistically full pattern of AGNs chosen by their emission within the arduous 4–12 keV X-ray vitality band on completion of the deliberate eight sky surveys,” the researchers concluded.

© 2023 Science X Community