AN X-RAY AND MULTIWAVELENGTH SURVEY OF HIGHLY RADIO-LOUD QUASARS AT z > 4: JET-LINKED EMISSION IN THE BRIGHTEST RADIO BEACONS OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE

Journal Article · Fri Feb 15 04:00:00 EST 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/763/2/109· OSTI ID:22167137

Wu, Jianfeng; Brandt, W. N.; Garmire, Gordon P.; Schneider, Donald P. ^[1]; Miller, Brendan P. ^[2]; Vignali, Cristian ^[3]

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1. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
2. Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States)
3. Dipartimento di Astronomia, Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy)

We present a systematic study of the X-ray and multiwavelength properties of a sample of 17 highly radio-loud quasars (HRLQs) at z > 4 with sensitive X-ray coverage from new Chandra and archival Chandra, XMM-Newton, and Swift observations. Eight of the new and archival observations are reported in this work for the first time. New Chandra observations of two moderately radio-loud and highly optically luminous quasars at z {approx}> 4 are also reported. Our HRLQ sample represents the top {approx}5% of radio-loud quasars (RLQs) in terms of radio loudness. We found that our HRLQs have an X-ray emission enhancement over HRLQs at lower redshifts (by a typical factor of Almost-Equal-To 3), and this effect, after controlling for several factors which may introduce biases, has been solidly estimated to be significant at the 3{sigma}-4{sigma} level. HRLQs at z = 3-4 are also found to have a similar X-ray emission enhancement over z < 3 HRLQs, which further supports the robustness of our results. We discuss models for the X-ray enhancement's origin including a fractional contribution from inverse Compton scattering of cosmic microwave background photons. No strong correlations are found between the relative X-ray brightness and optical/UV emission-line rest-frame equivalent widths (REWs) for RLQs. However, the line REWs are positively correlated with radio loudness, which suggests that relativistic jets make a negligible contribution to the optical/UV continua of these HRLQs (contrary to the case where the emission lines are diluted by the relativistically boosted continuum). Our HRLQs are generally consistent with the known anti-correlation between radio loudness and X-ray power-law photon index. We also found that the two moderately radio-loud quasars appear to have the hardest X-ray spectra among our objects, suggesting that intrinsic X-ray absorption (N {sub H} {approx} 10{sup 23} cm{sup -2}) may be present. Our z > 4 HRLQs generally have higher X-ray luminosities than those for the composite broadband spectral energy distributions of HRLQs at lower redshift, which further illustrates and supports the X-ray emission enhancement of z > 4 HRLQs. Some of our HRLQs also show an excess of mid-infrared emission which may originate from the synchrotron emission of the relativistic jets. None of our z > 4 HRLQs is detected by the Fermi-LAT two-year survey, which provides constraints on jet-emission models.

• OSTI ID: 22167137
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 763; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ABSORPTION
BRIGHTNESS
COMPTON EFFECT
EMISSION
ENERGY SPECTRA
GALAXY NUCLEI
HARD X RADIATION
LUMINOSITY
PHOTONS
QUASARS
RED SHIFT
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
RELICT RADIATION
SYNCHROTRONS
UNIVERSE
X-RAY GALAXIES