Similarity of jet radiation between flat spectrum radio quasars and GeV narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies: a universal δ-Lc correlation

By modeling the broadband spectral energy distributions （SEDs） of a typical flat spectrum radio quasar （FSRQ, 3C 279） and two GeV narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies （NLSls, PMN J0948＋0022 and 1H 0323＋342） in different flux stages with one-zone leptonic models, we find a universal correlation between their Doppler factors （δ） and peak luminosities （Lc） of external Compton scattering bumps. Compiling a combined sample of FSRQs and GeV NLSls, it is found that both FSRQs and GeV NLSls in different stages and in different sources follow the same δ-Lc correlation well. This indicates that the variations of observed luminosities may be essentially due to the Doppler boosting effect. The universal δ-Lo relation between FSRQs and GeV NLS 1 s in different stages may be further evidence that the particle acceleration and radiation mechanisms for the two kinds of sources are similar. In addition, by replacing Lc with the observed luminosity in the Fermi/LAT band （LLAT）, this correlation holds and it may serve as an empirical indicator of δ. We estimate the δ values with LLAT for 484 FSRQs in the Fermi/LAT Catalog and they range from 3 to 41, with a median of 16, which are statistically consistent with the values derived by other methods.

The Difference between the α-disks of Seyfert 1 Galaxies and Quasars

In a previous paper, it was suggested that contamination of the nuclear luminosity by the host galaxy plays an important role in determining the parameters of the standard a disk of AGNs. Using the nuclear absolute B band magnitude instead of the total absolute B band magnitude, we have recalculated the central black hole masses, accretion rates and disk inclinations for 20 Seyfert 1 galaxies and 17 Palomar-Green (PG) quasars. It is found that a small value of a is needed for the Seyfert 1 galaxies than for the PG quasars. This difference in a possibly leads to the different properties of Seyfert 1 galaxies and quasars. Furthermore, we find most of the objects in this sample are not accreting at super-Eddington rates if we adopt the nuclear optical luminosity in our calculation.

Formation and Evolution of Galaxies and Its Black Holes and Quasars

Galaxy formation and evolution is one of the most active research areas in astrophysics,so many people have studied this area.But since they didn’t understand thoroughly the evolution law from satellite to planet then to star,their theories are very weak.In their theories,they proposed that large gas clouds collapsing to form a galaxy or more recently that matter started out in smaller clumps merged to form galaxy,which is incredible.Hence,the author of this paper,through studying the formation and orbit-variation of satellites,planets and stars,has put forward a new theory of galaxy formation and evolution,therefore revealing the hierarchical structure of galaxies and the formation and evolution of black holes and quasars.

Merging History of Massive Galaxies at 3

The observational data of high redshift galaxies become increasingly abundant,especially since the operation of the James Webb Space Telescope,which allows us to verify and optimize the galaxy formation model at high redshifts.In this work,we investigate the merging history of massive galaxies at 3<z<6 using a well-developed semi-analytic galaxy formation catalog.We find that the major merger rate increases with redshift up to 3 and then flattens.The fraction of wet mergers,during which the sum of the cold gas mass is higher than the sum of the stellar mass in two merging galaxies,also increases from~34%at z=0 to 96%at z=3.Interestingly,almost all major mergers are wet at z>3.This can be attributed to the high fraction(>50%)of cold gas at z>3.In addition,we study some special systems of massive merging galaxies at 3<z<6,including the massive gas-rich major merging systems and extreme dense proto-clusters,and investigate the supermassive black hole-dark matter halo mass relation and dual active galactic nuclei.We find that the galaxy formation model reproduces the incidence of those observed massive galaxies,but fails to reproduce the relation between the supermassive black hole mass and the dark matter halo mass at z~6.The latter requires more careful estimates of the supermassive black hole masses observationally.Otherwise,it could suggest modifications of the modeling of the supermassive black hole growth at high redshifts.

Study of Central Intensity Ratio of Seyfert Galaxies in Nearby Universe

We use the recently discovered simple photometric parameter Central Intensity Ratio(CIR)determined for a sample of 57 nearby(z<0.02)Seyfert galaxies to explore the central features of galaxies and their possible connection with galaxy evolution.The sample of galaxies shows strong anti-correlation between CIR and mass of their central supermassive black holes(SMBHs).The SMBH masses of ellipticals are systematically higher for a given CIR value than those for lenticulars and spirals in the sample.However,the correlation between CIR and central velocity dispersion is weak.CIR appears less influenced by the excess flux produced by the central engine in these galaxies,when compared to spectroscopic parameters like velocity dispersion and OⅣflux,and proves to be a fast and reliable tool for estimating central SMBH mass.

The AGN Feedback in Compact Galaxies:On the Impact of a More Massive Central Black Hole

We conduct high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations using the MACER framework to investigate the interplay between the interstellar medium,active galactic nuclei(AGN)feedback and black hole(BH)feeding in a massive compact galaxy,with an emphasis on the impact of different central BH masses.We find that with a more massive central BH,high-speed outflows are more prominent,and the gas fraction in the compact galaxy is reduced.Due to the lower gas density and higher gas temperature,the compact galaxy with a more massive BH(MAS galaxy)remains predominantly single-phase with the cooling time t_(cool)■100t_(ff).In contrast,the compact galaxy with the reference BH mass(REF galaxy)maintains a higher gas fraction with a shorter cooling time,slightly more multiphase gas and less prominent outflows.We further demonstrate that the difference in gas thermal states and kinematics is caused by the stronger AGN feedback in the compact galaxy with a more massive BH,where the AGN wind power is twice as much as that with the reference BH.Since the AGN feedback efficiently suppresses the inflow rate and the BH feeding rate,the BH mass growth is significant in neither the compact galaxy with the reference BH nor that with the more massive BH,only by 24%and 11%of the initial BH mass,respectively,over the entire evolution time of 10 Gyr.We thus posit that without ex situ mass supply from mergers,the massive BHs in compact galaxies cannot grow significantly via gas accretion during the late phase,but might have already formed by the end of the rapid early phase of galaxy formation.

The HⅠGas Fraction Scaling Relation of the Green Pea Galaxies

Green Pea galaxies are compact galaxies with high star formation rates.However,limited samples of Green Pea galaxies have H I 21 cm measurements.Whether the H I gas fraction(fH I≡MH I/M_(★))of Green Pea galaxies follows the existing scaling relations between the fH Iand NUV-r color or linear combinations of color and other physical quantities needs checking.Using archival data of H I 21 cm observations,we investigate the scaling relation of the NUV-r color with the MH I/M_(★)of 38 Green Pea galaxies,including 17 detections and 21 nondetections.The H I to stellar mass ratios(fH I)of Green Pea galaxies deviate from the polynomial form,where a higher H I gas fraction is predicted given the current NUV-r color,even with the emission lines removed.The blue sources(NUV-r<1)from the comparison sample(ALFALFA-SDSS)follow a similar trend.The H I gas fraction scaling relations with linear combination forms of-0.34(N UV-r)-0.64 log(μ_(★,z))+5.9 and-0.77 log_(μ_(★)),i+0.26logS FRM_(★)+8.53,better predict the H I gas fraction of the Green Pea galaxies.In order to obtain accurate linear combined forms,higher-resolution photometry from space-based telescopes is needed.

Mock X-Ray Observations of Hot Gas with L-Galaxies Semi-analytic Models of Galaxy Formation

We create mock X-ray observations of hot gas in galaxy clusters with a new extension of the L-Galaxies semianalytic model of galaxy formation,which includes the radial distribution of hot gas in each halo.Based on the model outputs,we first build some mock light cones,then generate mock spectra with the SOXS package and derive the mock images in the light cones.Using the mock data,we simulate mock X-ray spectra for the ROSAT all-sky survey,and compare the mock spectra with the observational results.Then,we consider the design parameters of the HUBS mission and simulate the observation of the halo hot gas for HUBS as an important application of our mock work.We find:(1)our mock data match the observations by current X-ray telescopes.(2)The survey of hot baryons in resolved clusters by HUBS is effective below redshift 0.5,and the observations of the emission lines in point-like sources at z>0.5 by HUBS help us understand the hot baryons in the early universe.(3)By taking advantage of the large simulation box and flexibility in semi-analytic models,our mock X-ray observations provide the opportunity to select targets and observation strategies for forthcoming X-ray facilities.

Relations between the Fractional Variation of the Ionizing Continuum and CⅣBroad Absorption Lines with Different Ionization Levels

This paper explores the correlation between the fractional variation of the ionizing continuum and CⅣbroad absorption lines(BALs)with different ionization levels.Our results reveal anti-correlations between fractional variation of the continuum and fractional equivalency width(EW)variation of the CⅣB ALs without AlⅢB AL/mini-BALs at corresponding velocities,providing evidence for the widespread influence of the ionizing continuum variability on the variation of HiBALs.Conversely,for CⅣBALs accompanied by AlⅢBAL/mini-BALs(LoBAL groups),no significant correction is detected.The absence of such a correlation does not rule out the possibility that variations in these low-ionization lines are caused by ionizing continuum variability,but rather suggests the influence of B AL saturation to some extent.This saturation effect is reflected in the distribution of the fractional EW variation,where the CⅣBAL group accompanied by AlⅢBAL has a smaller standard deviation for the best-fitting Gaussian component than the two BAL groups without AlⅢB AL.However,the distribution of fractional variation of their continuum does not show any significant difference.Besides the saturation influence,another potential explanation for the lack of correlations in the LoBAL groups may be the effects of other variability mechanisms besides the ionization change,such as clouds transiting across the line of sight.

A Possible X-ray Quasi-periodic Oscillation in the Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy Mrk 142

A possible quasi-periodic oscillation(QPO) at frequency 7.045 × 10^(-5) Hz is found in the narrow-line Seyfert 1galaxy Mrk 142 in the data of XMM-Newton collected on 2020 April 11.We find that the QPO signal is statistically significantly larger than the 5σ level and highly coherent with quality factor Q > 5 at the 0.3–10 keV band by using the method of the Lomb–Scargle Periodogram,the Weighted Wavelet Z-transform and the REDFIT.We analyze the data in 0.3–0.6 keV,0.6–1 keV,1–3 keV and 3–10 keV energy bands,and find obvious QPO signals at 0.3–0.6 keV and 1–3 keV bands.We then analyze the time-average spectra and time variability at the QPO frequency of 7.045 × 10^(-5) Hz,and use a model to fit them.We find that the QPO signal mainly comes from the X-ray hot corona.

Study of 26 Galactic Open Clusters with Extended Main-sequence Turnoffs

Recent studies indicate that some Galactic open clusters(OCs)exhibit extended main-sequence turnoff(eMSTO)in their color–magnitude diagrams(CMDs).However,the number of Galactic OCs with eMSTO structures detected so far is limited,and the reasons for their formation are still unclear.This work identifies 26 Galactic OCs with undiscovered eMSTOs and investigates the causes of these features.Stellar population types and fundamental parameters of cluster samples are acquired using CMD fitting methods.Among them,the results of 11 OCs are reliable as the observed CMDs are well-reproduced.We propose the crucial role of stellar binarity and confirm the importance of stellar rotation in reproducing eMSTO morphologies.The results also show that the impact of age spread is important,as it can adequately explain the structure of young OCs and fit the observed CMDs of intermediate-age OCs better.

Cluster Analysis of the Roma-BZCAT Blazars

Based on the collected multiwavelength data, namely in the radio(NVSS, FIRST, RATAN-600), IR(WISE),optical(Pan-STARRS), UV(GALEX), and X-ray(ROSAT, Swift-XRT) ranges, we have performed a cluster analysis for the blazars of the Roma-BZCAT catalog. Using two machine learning methods, namely a combination of PCA with k-means clustering and Kohonen's self-organizing maps(SOMs), we have constructed an independent classification of the blazars(five classes) and compared the classes with the known Roma-BZCAT classification(FSRQs, BL Lacs, galaxy-dominated BL Lacs, and blazars of an uncertain type) as well as with the high synchrotron peaked(HSP) blazars from the 3HSP catalog and blazars from the TeVCat catalog. The obtained groups demonstrate concordance with the BL Lac/FSRQ classification along with a continuous character of the change in the properties. The group of HSP blazars stands out against the overall distribution. We examine the characteristics of the five groups and demonstrate distinctions in their spectral energy distribution shapes. The effectiveness of the clustering technique for objective analysis of multiparametric arrays of experimental data is demonstrated.

Summary of a Life in Observational Ultraviolet/Optical Astronomy

I reminisce on my early life in Section 1;on my education in Sections 2 and 3;on the years at Princeton as a research astronomer in Section 4;on the years on the faculty at Chicago in Section 5;on research on Diffuse Interstellar Bands(DIBs) in Section 6;on construction of the 3.5 m telescope at Apache Point Observatory(APO)in Section 7;on work on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey(SDSS) in Section 8;on work in public education in Chicago in Section 9;and on my travels in Section 10. My main science research is of an observational nature,concerning Galactic and intergalactic interstellar gas. Highlights for me included my work on the orbiting telescope Copernicus, including the discovery of interstellar deuterium;early observations of absorption associated with fivetimes ionized oxygen;and discoveries concerning the phases of gas in the local interstellar medium, based on previously unobservable interstellar UV spectral lines. With other instruments and collaborations, I extended interstellar UV studies to the intergalactic cool gas using quasi-stellar object QSO absorption lines redshifted to the optical part of the spectrum;provided a better definition of the emission and morphological character of the source of absorption lines in QSO spectra;and pursued the identification of the unidentified DIBs. For several of these topics, extensive collaborations with many scientists were essential over many years. The conclusions developed slowly, as I moved from being a graduate student at Chicago, to a research scientist position at Princeton and then to a faculty position at Chicago. At each stage of life, I was exposed to new technologies adaptable to my science and to subsequent projects. From high school days, I encountered several management opportunities which were formative. I have been extremely fortunate both in scientific mentors I had and in experimental opportunities I encountered.

Investigating the Evolution of Amati Parameters with Redshift

Gamma-ray bursts(GRBs) are among the brightest objects in the Universe and, hence, can be observed up to a very high redshift. Properly calibrated empirical correlations between intensity and spectral correlations of GRBs can be used to estimate the cosmological parameters. However, the possibility of the evolution of GRBs with redshift is a long-standing puzzle. In this work, we used 162 long-duration GRBs to determine whether GRBs below and above a certain redshift have different properties. The GRBs are split into two groups, and we fit the Amati relation for each group separately. Our findings demonstrate that estimations of the Amati parameters for the two groups are substantially dissimilar. We perform simulations to investigate whether the selection effects could cause the difference. Our analysis shows that the differences may be either intrinsic or due to systematic errors in the data, and the selection effects are not their true origin. However, in-depth analysis with a new data set comprised of 119 long GRBs shows that intrinsic scatter may partly be responsible for such effects.

Variable Stars in the 50BiN Open Cluster Survey.Ⅲ.NGC 884

Open clusters are the basic building blocks that serve as a laboratory for the study of young stellar populations in the Milky Way.Variable stars in open clusters provide a unique way to accurately probe the internal structure,temporal and dynamical evolutionary stages of individual stars and the host cluster.The most powerful tool for such studies is time-domain photometric observations.This paper follows the route of our previous work,concentrating on a photometric search for variable stars in NGC 884.The target cluster is the companion of NGC869,forming the well-known double cluster system that is gravitationally bound.From the observation run in 2016 November,a total of 9247 B-band CCD images and 8218Ⅴ-band CCD images were obtained.We detected a total of 15 stars with variability in visual brightness,including five Be stars,three eclipsing binaries,and seven of unknown types.Two new variable stars were discovered in this work.We also compared the variable star content of NGC 884 with its companion NGC 869.

The Origin, Properties and Detection of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

The pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest that massive galaxies were already at the beginning of the expansion of the Universe because there was too short time to create them. It is consistent with the new cosmology presented within the Scale-Symmetric Theory (SST). The phase transitions of the initial inflation field described in SST lead to the Protoworld—its core was built of dark matter (DM). We show that the DAMA/LIBRA annual-modulation amplitude forced by the change of the Earth’s velocity (i.e. baryonic-matter (BM) velocity) in relation to the spinning DM field in our Galaxy’s halo should be very low. We calculated that in the DM-BM weak interactions are created single and entangled spacetime condensates with a lowest mass/energy of 0.807 keV—as the Higgs boson they can decay to two photons, so we can indirectly detect DM. Our results are consistent with the averaged DAMA/LIBRA/COSINE-100 curve describing the dependence of the event rate on the photon energy in single-hit events. We calculated the mean dark-matter-halo (DMH) mass around quasars, we also described the origin of the plateaux in the rotation curves for the massive spiral galaxies, the role of DM-loops in magnetars, the origin of CMB, the AGN-jet and galactic-halo production, and properties of dark energy (DE).

Isochrone Fitting of Galactic Globular Clusters—Ⅵ.High-latitude Clusters NGC 5024 (M53),NGC 5053,NGC 5272 (M3),NGC 5466,and NGC7099 (M30)

We fit various color–magnitude diagrams(CMDs) of the high-latitude Galactic globular clusters NGC 5024(M53),NGC 5053,NGC 5272(M3),NGC 5466,and NGC 7099(M30) by isochrones from the Dartmouth Stellar Evolution Database and Bag of Stellar Tracks and Isochrones for α–enrichment [α/Fe] = +0.4.For the CMDs,we use data sets from Hubble Space Telescope,Gaia,and other sources utilizing,at least,25 photometric filters for each cluster.We obtain the following characteristics with their statistical uncertainties for NGC 5024,NGC 5053,NGC 5272,NGC 5466,and NGC 7099,respectively:metallicities [Fe/H] =-1.93 ± 0.02,-2.08 ± 0.03,-1.60 ± 0.02,-1.95 ± 0.02,and-2.07 ± 0.04 dex with their systematic uncertainty 0.1 dex;ages 13.00 ± 0.11,12.70 ± 0.11,11.63 ± 0.07,12.15 ± 0.11,and 12.80 ± 0.17 Gyr with their systematic uncertainty 0.8 Gyr;distances(systematic uncertainty added) 18.22 ± 0.06 ± 0.60,16.99 ± 0.06 ± 0.56,10.08 ± 0.04 ± 0.33,15.59 ±0.03 ± 0.51,and 8.29 ± 0.03 ± 0.27 kpc;reddenings E(B-V) = 0.023 ± 0.004,0.017 ± 0.004,0.023 ± 0.004,0.023 ± 0.003,and 0.045 ± 0.002 mag with their systematic uncertainty 0.01 mag;extinctions AV= 0.08 ± 0.01,0.06 ± 0.01,0.08 ± 0.01,0.08 ± 0.01,and 0.16 ± 0.01 mag with their systematic uncertainty 0.03 mag,which suggest the total Galactic extinction AV= 0.08 across the whole Galactic dust to extragalactic objects at the North Galactic Pole.The horizontal branch morphology difference of these clusters is explained by their different metallicity,age,mass-loss efficiency,and loss of low-mass members in the evolution of the core-collapse cluster NGC 7099 and loose clusters NGC 5053 and NGC 5466.

GeneticKNN:a weighted KNN approach supported by genetic algorithm for photometric redshift estimation of quasars

We combine K-nearest neighbors(KNN)with a genetic algorithm(GA)for photometric redshift estimation of quasars,short for GeneticKNN,which is a weighted KNN approach supported by a GA.This approach has two improvements compared to KNN:one is the feature weighted by GA;the other is that the predicted redshift is not the redshift average of K neighbors but the weighted average of median and mean of redshifts for K neighbors,i.e.p×zmedian+(1-p)×zmean.Based on the SDSS and SDSS-WISE quasar samples,we explore the performance of GeneticKNN for photometric redshift estimation,comparing with the other six traditional machine learning methods,i.e.the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator(LASSO),support vector regression(SVR),multi-layer perceptrons(MLP),XGBoost,KNN and random forest.KNN and random forest show their superiority.Considering the easy implementation of KNN,we make improvement on KNN as GeneticKNN and apply GeneticKNN on photometric redshift estimation of quasars.Finally the performance of GeneticKNN is better than that of LASSO,SVR,MLP,XGBoost,KNN and random forest for all cases.Moreover the accuracy is better with the additional WISE magnitudes for the same method.

A new strategy for estimating photometric redshifts of quasars

Based on the SDSS and SDSS-WISE quasar datasets, we put forward two schemes to estimate the photometric redshifts of quasars. Our schemes are based on the idea that the samples are firstly classified into subsamples by a classifier and then a photometric redshift estimation of different subsamples is performed by a regressor. Random Forest is adopted as the core algorithm of the classifiers, while Random Forest and k NN are applied as the key algorithms of regressors. The samples are divided into two subsamples and four subsamples, depending on the redshift distribution. The performances based on different samples, different algorithms and different schemes are compared. The experimental results indicate that the accuracy of photometric redshift estimation for the two schemes generally improves to some extent compared to the original scheme in terms of the percents in |△z|1+zi< 0.1 and |△z|1+zi<0.2 and mean absolute error. Only given the running speed, k NN shows its superiority to Random Forest. The performance of Random Forest is a little better than or comparable to that of k NN with the two datasets. The accuracy based on the SDSS-WISE sample outperforms that based on the SDSS sample no matter by k NN or by Random Rorest. More information from more bands is considered and helpful to improve the accuracy of photometric redshift estimation. Evidently, it can be found that our strategy to estimate photometric redshift is applicable and may be applied to other datasets or other kinds of objects. Only talking about the percent in |△z|1+zi<0.3, there is still large room for further improvement in the photometric redshift estimation.

Eight new quasars discovered by the Guoshoujing Telescope (LAMOST) in one extragalactic field

We report the discovery of eight new quasars in one extragalactic field （a five-degree field centered at RA=08^h58^m08.2^s, Dec=01°32′29.7″） with the Guoshoujing Telescope （LAMOST） commissioning observations made on 2009 December 18. These quasars, with i magnitudes from 16.44 to 19.34 and redshifts from 0.898 to 2.773, were not identified in the SDSS spectroscopic survey, though six of them with redshifts less than 2.5 were selected as quasar targets in SDSS. Except for one source without near-IR Y-band data, seven of these eight new quasars satisfy a newly proposed quasar selection criterion involving both near-IR and optical colors. Two of them were found in the ＇redshift desert＇ for quasars （z from 2.2 to 3）, indicating that the new criterion is efficient for uncovering missing quasars with similar optical colors to stars. Although LAMOST encountered some problems during the commissioning observations, we were still able to identify 38 other known SDSS quasars in this field, with i magnitudes from 16.24 to 19.10 and redshifts from 0.297 to 4.512. Our identifications imply that a substantial fraction of quasars may be miss- ing in previous quasar surveys. The implication of our results to the future LAMOST quasar survey is discussed.