Toward a Direct Measurement of the Cosmic Acceleration:The Pilot Observation of HI 21 cm Absorption Line at FAST

This study presents results on detecting neutral atomic hydrogen(H I)21 cm absorption in the spectrum of PKS PKS1413+13 at redshift z=0.24670041.The observation was conducted by FAST,with a spectral resolution of10 Hz,using 10 minutes of observing time.The global spectral profile is examined by modeling the absorption line using a single Gaussian function with a resolution of 10 kHz within a 2 MHz bandwidth.The goal is to determine the rate of the latest cosmic acceleration by directly measuring the redshift evolution of the H I 21 cm absorption line with Hubble flow toward a common background quasar over a decade or longer time span.This will serve as a detectable signal generated by the accelerated expansion of the Universe at redshift z<1,referred to as redshift drift z(5)or the SL effect.The measured H I gas column density in this DLA system is approximately equivalent to the initial observation value,considering uncertainties of the spin temperature of a spiral host galaxy.The high signal-to-noise ratio of 57,obtained at a 10 kHz resolution,strongly supports the feasibility of using the H I 21 cm absorption line in DLA systems to accurately measure the redshift drift rate at a precision level of around 10~(-10)per decade.

Identifying Three New AGNs among Fermi Unidentified Gigaelectronvolt Sources

We report our identification of three gigaelectronvoltγ-ray sources,4FGL J0502.6+0036,4FGL J1055.9+6507,and 4FGL J1708.2+5519,as Active Galactic Nuclei(AGNs).They are listed in the latest Fermi-Large Area Telescope source catalog as unidentified ones.We find that the sources all showedγ-ray flux variations in recent years.Using different survey catalogs,we are able to find a radio source within the error circle of each source's position.Further analysis of optical sources in the fields allows us to determine the optical counterparts,which showed similar variation patterns to those seen inγ-rays.The optical counterparts have reported redshifts of 0.6,1.5,and 2.3,respectively,estimated from photometric measurements.In addition,we also obtain an X-ray spectrum of 4FGL J0502.6+0036 and a flux upper limit on the X-ray emission of 4FGL J1055.9+6507 by analyzing the archival data.The broadband spectral energy distributions of the three sources from radio toγ-rays are constructed.Comparing mainly theγ-ray properties of the three sources with those of different sub-classes of AGNs,we tentatively identify them as blazars.Followup optical spectroscopy is highly warranted for obtaining their spectral features and thus verifying the identification.