2010/01/10 by D. Lal, Dharam Vir Lal, Luis C. Ho
Physics and Astronomy · #Active galactic nucleus #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Emission spectrum #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Physics #Quasar #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Radio galaxy #Sky #Spectral line #X-shaped radio galaxy #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-6256/139/3/1089
Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal. The paper includes 8 figures and 3 tables
arxiv created 2010/01/10 · openalex publication_date 2010/02/03 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This paper presents the first high-resolution and high-sensitivity study of the radio properties of optically selected type 2 quasars. We used the Very Large Array at 8.4 GHz to observe 59 sources drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample of Zakamska et al.. The detection rate of our survey is 59% (35/59), comparable to the detection rate in FIRST at 1.4 GHz. Ongoing star formation, although present, contributes negligible radio emission at the current sensitivity limit. Comparing the radio powers with the [O iii ] λ5007 luminosities, we find that roughly 15% ± 5% of the sample can be considered radio loud. Intriguingly, the vast majority of the detected sources in our sample fall in a region intermediate between those traditionally occupied by radio loud and radio quiet quasars. Moreover, most of these "radio intermediate" sources tend to have flat or inverted radio spectra, which we speculate may be caused by free–free absorption by ionized gas in the narrow-line region. The incidence of flat-spectrum sources in type 2 quasars appears to be much higher than in type 1 quasars, in apparent violation of the simple orientation-based unified model for active galaxies.