Refine
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (2)
Year of publication
- 2016 (2) (remove)
Document Type
- Doctoral Thesis (2)
Language
- English (2)
Keywords
- Radio astronomy (2)
- Radioastronomie (2)
- Active Galaxies (1)
- Active galactic nucleus (1)
- Aktive Galaxie (1)
- Aktiver galaktischer Kern (1)
- Astrophysical Jet (1)
- Blazar (1)
- Blazars (1)
- High-energy emission (1)
Institute
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are among the brightest sources in our universe. These galaxies are considered active because their central region is brighter than the luminosities of all stars in a galxies can provide. In their center is a supermassive black hole (SMBH) surrounded by an accretion disk and further out a dusty torus. AGN can be found with emission over the whole electromagnetic spectrum, starting at radio frequencies over optical and X-ray emission up to the $\gamma$-rays. Not all of these sources are detected in each frequency regime. In this work mainly blazars are examined at low radio frequencies. Blazars are a subclass of radio-loud AGN. These radio-loud sources usually exhibit highly collimated jets perpendicular to the accretion disk. For blazars these jets are pointed in the direction of the observer and their emission is highly variable. \\
AGN are classified in different subclasses based on their morphology. These different subclasses are combined in the AGN unification model, which explains the different morphologies by having sources only varying in their luminosities and their angle to the line of sight to the observer. Blazars are these targets, where the jet is pointing towards the observer, while the AGN observed edge on are called radio galaxies. This means that blazars should be the counterparts to radio galaxies seen from a different angle. Testing this is one of the goals in this work. \\
After the discovery of AGN in the 1940s these objects have been studied at all wavelengths. With the development of interferometry with radio telescopes the angular resolution for radio observations could be improved. In the last 20 years many AGN are regularly monitored. One of these monitoring programs is the MOJAVE program, monitoring 274 AGNs with using the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique. The monitoring provides information on the evolution and structure of AGN and their jets. However, the mechanisms of the jet formation and their collimation are not fully understood. Due to relativistic effects it is difficult to obtain intrinsic instead of apparent parameters of these jets. One approach to get closer to the intrinsic jet power is by observing the regions, in which the jets end and interact with the intergalactic medium. Observations at lower radio frequencies are more sensitive for extended diffuse emission. \\
Since December 2012 a new radio telescope for low frequencies is observing. It is a telescope with stations consisting of dipole antennas. The major part of the array located in the Netherlands (38 stations) with 12 additional international stations in Germany, France, Sweden, Poland and the United Kingdom. This instrument is called the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). LOFAR offers the possibility to observe at frequencies between 30--250 MHz in combination with angular resolution (below 1 arcsec for the full array), which was not available with previous telescopes. \\
In this work results of blazar studies with LOFAR observations are presented. To take advantage of a large database with multi-wavelength observations and kinematic studies the MOJAVE 1.5 Jy flux limited sample was chosen. Based on the preliminary results of the LOFAR Multifrequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS) the flux densities and spectral indices of blazars of the MOJAVE sample are examined. 125 counterparts of MOJAVE blazars were found in the MSSS catalog. Since the MSSS observations only contain the stations in the Netherlands and observes in snapshots, the angular resolution and the sensitivity is limited. The first MSSS catalog was produced with an angular resolution of $\sim$120 arcsec and a sensitivity of $\sim$50--100 mJy. Another advantage of the MOJAVE sample is the monitoring of these sources with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) at 15 GHz to produce radio lightcurves. With these observations it is possible to get quasi-simultaneous flux densities at 15 GHz for the corresponding MSSS observations. By having quasi-simultaneous observations the variability of the blazars affects the flux densities less than with the use of archival data. The spectral indices obtained by the combination of MSSS and OVRO flux densities can be used to estimate the contribution of the diffuse extended emission for these AGNs. \\
Comparing the MSSS catalog with the OVRO data points, the flux densities have a tendency to be higher at low frequencies. This is expected due to the higher contribution of extended emission. The broadband spectral index distribution shows a peak at $\sim-0.2$. While some sources seem to have steeper spectral indices meaning that extended emission contributes a large fraction of the total flux density, more than the half of the sample shows flat spectral indices. The flat spectral indices show that the total flux densities of these sources are dominated by their relativistic beamed emission regions, which is the same for the observations at GHz frequencies. \\
To obtain more detailed images of these sources the MSSS measurement sets including sources of the sample were reprocessed to improve the angular resolution to $\sim$30 arcsec. The higher angular resolution reveals extended diffuse emission of several blazars. Since the reimaging results were not fully calibrated only the morphology at this resolution could be examined. However, with the short snapshot observations the images obtained with this strategy are affected from artifacts. The reimaging could be successfully performed for 93 sources in one frequency band. For 45 of these sources all availabe frequency bands could be reprocessed and used to created averaged images. These images are presented in this work. As a results of the reimaging process a pilot sample was defined to observe targets with diffuse extended emission using the whole LOFAR array including the international stations. \\
The second part of this work presents the results of a pilot sample consisting of four blazars observed with the LOFAR international array. Since the calibration of this kind of LOFAR observation is still in development, the main focus was the description of the used calibration strategy. The calibration strategies still has some limitation but resulted in images with angular resolutions of less than 1 arcsec. The morphology of all four blazars show features confirming the expectations of their counterpart radio galaxies. With the flux densities of the extended emission found in these brightness distributions the extended radio luminosities are calculated. Comparing these to the radio galaxy classifications also confirm the expectations from the unification model. \\
By extending the sample of observed blazars with LOFAR international in future the calibration strategy can be used to create similar high resolution images. A larger sample can be used to test the unification model with statistical significant results. \\
The most energetic versions of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) feature two highly-relativistic plasma outflows, so-called jets, that are created in the vicinity of the central supermassive black hole and evolve in opposite directions. In blazars, which dominate the extragalactic gamma-ray sky, the jets are aligned close to the observer's line of sight leading to strong relativistic beaming effects of the jet emission. Radio observations especially using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) provide the best way to gain direct information on the intrinsic properties of jets down to sub-parsec scales, close to their formation region.
In this thesis, I focus on the properties of three AGNs, IC 310, PKS 2004-447, and 3C 111 that belong to the small non-blazar population of gamma-ray-loud AGNs. In these kinds of AGNs, the jets are less strongly aligned with respect to the observer than in blazars. I study them in detail with a variety of radio astronomical instruments with respect to their high-energy emission and in the context of the large samples in the monitoring programmes MOJAVE and TANAMI. My analysis of radio interferometric observations and flux density monitoring data reveal very different characteristics of the jet emission in these sources. The work presented in this thesis illustrates the diversity of the radio properties of gamma-ray-loud AGNs that do not belong to the dominating class of blazars.