[en] We present new XMM-Newton observations of the hot-gas atmospheres of two low-power twin-jet radio galaxies, 3C 66B and 3C 449. Our images of the extended emission surrounding the two radio galaxies provide new evidence of the influence of environment on radio structure, and the XMM-Newton data additionally allow us to measure physical conditions in the environments and relate them to the dynamics of the radio sources

[en] We report the detection of infrared emission from the jet of the nearby Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxy 3C 31. The jet was detected with the IRAC instrument on Spitzer at 4.5 μm, 5.8 μm, and 8.0 μm out to 30'' (13 kpc) from the nucleus. We measure radio, infrared, optical, and X-ray fluxes in three regions along the jet determined by the infrared and X-ray morphology. Radio through X-ray spectra in these regions demonstrate that the emission can be interpreted as synchrotron emission from a broken power-law distribution of electron energies. We find significant differences in the high-energy spectra with increasing distance from the nucleus. Specifically, the high-energy slope increases from 0.86 to 1.72 from 1 kpc to 12 kpc along the jet, and the spectral break likewise increases in frequency along the jet from tens to hundreds of GHz to ∼20 THz. Thus, the ratio of IR-to-X-ray flux in the jet increases by at least an order of magnitude with increasing distance from the nucleus. We argue that these changes cannot simply be the result of spectral aging and that there is ongoing particle acceleration through this region of the jet. The effects of mass loading, turbulence, and jet deceleration, however these processes modify the jet flow in detail, must be causing a change in the electron energy distribution and the efficiency of particle acceleration.

[en] We investigate the effectiveness of blind surveys for radio sources and galaxy cluster thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects (TSZEs) using the four-pair, beam-switched OCRA-f radiometer on the 32-m radio telescope in Poland. The predictions are based on mock maps that include the cosmic microwave background, TSZEs from hydrodynamical simulations of large scale structure formation, and unresolved radio sources. We validate the mock maps against observational data, and examine the limitations imposed by simplified physics. We estimate the effects of source clustering towards galaxy clusters from NVSS source counts around Planck-selected cluster candidates, and include appropriate correlations in our mock maps. The study allows us to quantify the effects of halo line-of-sight alignments, source confusion, and telescope angular resolution on the detections of TSZEs. We perform a similar analysis for the planned 100-m Hevelius radio telescope (RTH) equipped with a 49-beam radio camera and operating at frequencies up to 22 GHz.We find that RT32/OCRA-f will be suitable for small-field blind radio source surveys, and will detect 33⁺¹⁷₋₁₁ new radio sources brighter than 0.87 mJy at 30 GHz in a 1 deg² field at > 5σ CL during a one-year, non-continuous, observing campaign, taking account of Polish weather conditions. It is unlikely that any galaxy cluster will be detected at 3σ CL in such a survey. A 60-deg² survey, with field coverage of 2² beams per pixel, at 15 GHz with the RTH, would find <1.5 galaxy clusters per year brighter than 60 μJy (at 3σ CL), and would detect about 3.4 × 10⁴ point sources brighter than 1 mJy at 5σ CL, with confusion causing flux density errors ∼< 2% (20%) in 68% (95%) of the detected sources.A primary goal of the planned RTH will be a wide-area (π sr) radio source survey at 15 GHz. This survey will detect nearly 3 × 10⁵ radio sources at 5σ CL down to 1.3 mJy, and tens of galaxy clusters, in one year of operation with typical weather conditions. Confusion will affect the measured flux densities by ∼< 1.5% (16%) for 68% (95%) of the point sources. We also gauge the impact of the RTH by investigating its performance if equipped with the existing RT32 receivers, and the performance of the RT32 equipped with the RTH radio camera

[en] The Y.T. Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy started scientific operation in early 2007. This work describes the optimization of the system performance for the measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect for six massive galaxy clusters at redshifts 0.09-0.32. We achieved a point-source sensitivity of 63 ± 7 mJy with the seven 0.6 m dishes in 1 hr of on-source integration in two-patch differencing observations. We measured and compensated for the delays between the antennas of our platform-mounted interferometer. Beam switching was used to cancel instrumental instabilities and ground pick up. Total power and phase stability were good on timescales of hours, and the system was shown to integrate down on equivalent timescales of 300 hr per baseline/correlation, or about 10 hr for the entire array. While the broadband correlator leads to good sensitivity, the small number of lags in the correlator resulted in poorly measured bandpass response. We corrected for this by using external calibrators (Jupiter and Saturn). Using Jupiter as the flux standard, we measured the disk brightness temperature of Saturn to be 149⁺⁵_-12 K.

[en] We present observations, analysis, and results for the first-year operation of Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA), an interferometric experiment designed to study cosmology via the measurement of cosmic microwave background (CMB). AMiBA is the first CMB interferometer operating at 3 mm to have reported successful results, currently with seven close-packed antennas of 60 cm diameter giving a synthesized resolution of around 6'. During 2007, AMiBA detected the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects (SZEs) of six galaxy clusters at redshift 0.091 ≤ z ≤ 0.322. An observing strategy with on-off-source switching is used to minimize the effects from electronic offset and ground pickup. Planets were used to test the observational capability of AMiBA and to calibrate the conversion from correlator time-lag data to visibilities. The detailed formalism for data analysis is given. We summarize our early tests including observations of planets and quasars, and present images, visibility profiles, the estimated central coordinates, sizes, and SZE amplitudes of the galaxy clusters. Scientific implications are summarized. We also discuss possible systematic effects in the results.

[en] We present a multiwavelength analysis of a sample of four hot (T_X > 8 keV) X-ray galaxy clusters (A1689, A2261, A2142, and A2390) using joint AMiBA Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) and Subaru weak-lensing observations, combined with published X-ray temperatures, to examine the distribution of mass and the intracluster medium (ICM) in massive cluster environments. Our observations show that A2261 is very similar to A1689 in terms of lensing properties. Many tangential arcs are visible around A2261, with an effective Einstein radius ∼40'' (at z ∼ 1.5), which when combined with our weak-lensing measurements implies a mass profile well fitted by a Navarro-Frenk-White model with a high concentration c _vir ∼ 10, similar to A1689 and to other massive clusters. The cluster A2142 shows complex mass substructure, and displays a shallower profile (c _vir ∼ 5), consistent with detailed X-ray observations which imply recent interaction. The AMiBA map of A2142 exhibits an SZE feature associated with mass substructure lying ahead of the sharp northwest edge of the X-ray core suggesting a pressure increase in the ICM. For A2390 we obtain highly elliptical mass and ICM distributions at all radii, consistent with other X-ray and strong-lensing work. Our cluster gas fraction measurements, free from the hydrostatic equilibrium assumption, are overall in good agreement with published X-ray and SZE observations, with the sample-averaged gas fraction of (f _gas(< r ₂₀₀)) = 0.133 ± 0.027, for our sample with (M _vir) = (1.2 ± 0.1) x 10¹⁵ M _sun h ^-1. When compared to the cosmic baryon fraction f_b = Ω _b/Ω _m constrained by the WMAP five-year data, this indicates (f _gas,200)/f_b = 0.78 ± 0.16, i.e., (22 ± 16)% of the baryons are missing from the hot phase of clusters.

[en] The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) has been observed toward six massive galaxy clusters, at redshifts 0.091 ≤ z ≤ 0.322 in the 86-102 GHz band with the Y. T. Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA). We modify an iterative method, based on the isothermal β models, to derive the electron temperature T_e, total mass M_t, gas mass M_g, and integrated Compton Y within r₂₅₀₀, from the AMiBA SZE data. Non-isothermal universal temperature profile (UTP) β models are also considered in this paper. These results are in good agreement with those deduced from other observations. We also investigate the embedded scaling relations, due to the assumptions that have been made in the method we adopted, between these purely SZE-deduced T_e, M_t, M_g, and Y. Our results suggest that cluster properties may be measurable with SZE observations alone. However, the assumptions built into the pure-SZE method bias the results of scaling relation estimations and need further study.

[en] We describe methods used to validate data from the Y.T. Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy (AMiBA), an interferometric array designed to measure the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background. We perform several statistical tests on data from pointed observations of galaxy clusters taken in 2007 and noise data from long-term blank-sky observations and measurements with the feeds covered by the absorbers. We apply power-spectrum analysis, cross-power-spectrum analysis among different outputs with different time lags in our analog correlator, and sample-variance law tests to noise data. We find that (1) there is no time variation of electronic offsets on the timescale of our two-patch observations (∼10 minutes); (2) noise is correlated by less than 10% between different lags; and (3) the variance of noise scales with the inverse of time. To test the Gaussianity of the data, we apply Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests to cluster data and find that a 5% significance level efficiently detects data sets with known hardware problems without rejecting an excess of acceptable data. We also calculate third- and fourth-order moments and cumulants for the noise residual visibilities and find that about 95% of our data are within the 99% confidence regions of Gaussianity.

[en] Low-frequency radio selection finds radio-bright galaxies regardless of the amount of obscuration by gas and dust. We report Chandra observations of a complete 178 MHz–selected, and so orientation-unbiased, sample of 44 0.5 < z < 1 3CRR sources. The sample is comprised of quasars and narrow-line radio galaxies (NLRGs) with similar radio luminosities, and the radio structure serves as both an age and an orientation indicator. Consistent with unification, intrinsic obscuration (measured by N _H, X-ray hardness ratio, and X-ray luminosity) generally increases with inclination. However, the sample includes a population not seen in high-z 3CRR sources: NLRGs viewed at intermediate inclination angles with N _H < 10²² cm⁻². Multiwavelength analysis suggests that these objects have lower L/L _Edd than typical NLRGs at similar orientation. Thus, both orientation and L/L _Edd are important, and a “radiation-regulated unification” provides a better explanation of the sample’s observed properties. In comparison with the 3CRR sample at 1 < z < 2, our lower-redshift sample shows a higher fraction of Compton-thin NLRGs (45% versus 29%) but a similar Compton-thick fraction (20%), implying a larger covering factor of Compton-thin material at intermediate viewing angles and thus a more “puffed-up” torus atmosphere. We posit that this is due to a range of L/L _Edd extending to lower values in this sample. In contrast, at high redshifts, the narrower range and high L/L _Edd values allowed orientation (and so simple unification) to dominate the sample’s observed properties.

[en] We investigate the contamination of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect for six galaxy clusters, A1689, A1995, A2142, A2163, A2261, and A2390, observed by the Y. T. Lee Array for Microwave Background Anisotropy in 2007. With the range of baselines used, we find that the largest effect (of order 13%-50% of the central SZ flux density) comes from primary anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background and exceeds the thermal noise in all six cases. Contamination from discrete radio sources is estimated to be at a level of 3%-60% of the central SZ flux density. We use the statistics of these contaminating sources to estimate and correct the errors in the measured SZ effects of these clusters.