A unique, ring-like radio source with quadrilateral structure detected with machine learning

Lochner, M.; Rudnick, L.; Heywood, I.; Knowles, K.; Shabala, S. S.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stad074

A unique, ring-like radio source with quadrilateral structure detected with machine learning

Journal Article · Wed Jan 11 00:00:00 EST 2023 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad074· OSTI ID:2422406

^[1]; ; ; ;

OSTI

ABSTRACT

We report the discovery of a unique object in the MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey (MGCLS) using the machine learning anomaly detection framework astronomaly. This strange, ring-like source is 30′ from the MGCLS field centred on Abell 209, and is not readily explained by simple physical models. With an assumed host galaxy at redshift 0.55, the luminosity (1025 W Hz−1) is comparable to powerful radio galaxies. The source consists of a ring of emission 175 kpc across, quadrilateral enhanced brightness regions bearing resemblance to radio jets, two ‘ears’ separated by 368 kpc, and a diffuse envelope. All of the structures appear spectrally steep, ranging from −1.0 to −1.5. The ring has high polarization (25 per cent) except on the bright patches (<10 per cent). We compare this source to the Odd Radio Circles recently discovered in ASKAP data and discuss several possible physical models, including a termination shock from starburst activity, an end-on radio galaxy, and a supermassive black hole merger event. No simple model can easily explain the observed structure of the source. This work, as well as other recent discoveries, demonstrates the power of unsupervised machine learning in mining large data sets for scientifically interesting sources.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0007914

OSTI ID:: 2422406

Journal Information:: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 520; ISSN 0035-8711

Publisher:: Oxford University PressCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (45)

Astronomaly: Personalised active anomaly detection in astronomical data Lochner, M.; Bassett, B. A. Astronomy and Computing, Vol. 36 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ascom.2021.100481	journal	July 2021
Unexpected circular radio objects at high Galactic latitude Norris, Ray P.; Intema, Huib T.; Kapińska, Anna D. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Vol. 38 https://doi.org/10.1017/pasa.2020.52	journal	January 2021
Australian square kilometre array pathfinder: I. system description Hotan, A. W.; Bunton, J. D.; Chippendale, A. P. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Vol. 38 https://doi.org/10.1017/pasa.2021.1	journal	January 2021
Discovery of an X-ray cavity near the radio lobes of Cygnus A indicating previous AGN activity Chon, Gayoung; Böhringer, Hans; Krause, Martin Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 545 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201219538	journal	August 2012
LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray van Haarlem, M. P.; Wise, M. W.; Gunst, A. W. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 556 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201220873	journal	July 2013
Astropy: A community Python package for astronomy Robitaille, Thomas P.; Tollerud, Erik J.; Greenfield, Perry Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 558 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201322068	journal	September 2013
The 5–10 keV AGN luminosity function at 0.01 <z< 4.0 Fotopoulou, S.; Buchner, J.; Georgantopoulos, I. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 587 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201424763	journal	March 2016
Convolution kernels for multi-wavelength imaging Boucaud, A.; Bocchio, M.; Abergel, A. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 596 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201629080	journal	December 2016
Faceting for direction-dependent spectral deconvolution Tasse, C.; Hugo, B.; Mirmont, M. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 611 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201731474	journal	March 2018
Planck 2018 results: VI. Cosmological parameters Aghanim, N.; Akrami, Y.; Ashdown, M. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 641, A6 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833910	journal	September 2020
Unveiling the rarest morphologies of the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey radio source population with self-organised maps Mostert, Rafaël I. J.; Duncan, Kenneth J.; Röttgering, Huub J. A. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 645 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038500	journal	January 2021
The eROSITA X-ray telescope on SRG Predehl, P.; Andritschke, R.; Arefiev, V. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 647 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202039313	journal	February 2021
The Galactic Faraday rotation sky 2020 Hutschenreuter, S.; Anderson, C. S.; Betti, S. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 657 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202140486	journal	January 2022
The MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey: I. Survey Overview and Highlights Knowles, K.; Cotton, W. D.; Rudnick, L. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 657 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141488	journal	January 2022
The discovery of a radio galaxy of at least 5 Mpc Oei, Martijn S. S. L.; van Weeren, Reinout J.; Hardcastle, Martin J. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 660 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202142778	journal	March 2022
Multifrequency VLA radio observations of the X-ray cavity cluster of galaxies RBS797: evidence of differently oriented jets Gitti, M.; Feretti, L.; Schindler, S. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol. 448, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20053998	journal	March 2006
The FIRST Survey: Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters Becker, Robert H.; White, Richard L.; Helfand, David J. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 450 https://doi.org/10.1086/176166	journal	September 1995
The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (Wise): Mission Description and Initial On-Orbit Performance Wright, Edward L.; Eisenhardt, Peter R. M.; Mainzer, Amy K. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 140, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/140/6/1868	journal	November 2010
The Dark Energy Survey Image Processing Pipeline Morganson, E.; Gruendl, R. A.; Menanteau, F. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 130, Issue 989 https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/aab4ef	journal	May 2018
Identifying Complex Sources in Large Astronomical Data Sets Using a Coarse-grained Complexity Measure Segal, Gary; Parkinson, David; Norris, Ray P. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 131, Issue 1004 https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/ab0068	journal	September 2019
Cataloguing the radio-sky with unsupervised machine learning: a new approach for the SKA era Galvin, T. J.; Huynh, M. T.; Norris, R. P. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 497, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1890	journal	July 2020
Unsupervised machine learning for transient discovery in deeper, wider, faster light curves Webb, Sara; Lochner, Michelle; Muthukrishna, Daniel Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 498, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2395	journal	September 2020
MIGHTEE: Total intensity radio continuum imaging and the COSMOS / XMM-LSS Early Science fields Heywood, I.; Jarvis, M. J.; Hale, C. L. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3021	journal	October 2021
Practical galaxy morphology tools from deep supervised representation learning Walmsley, Mike; Scaife, Anna M. M.; Lintott, Chris Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac525	journal	February 2022
MeerKAT uncovers the physics of an odd radio circle Norris, Ray P.; Collier, J. D.; Crocker, Roland M. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 513, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac701	journal	March 2022
wsclean: an implementation of a fast, generic wide-field imager for radio astronomy Offringa, A. R.; McKinley, B.; Hurley-Walker, N. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 444, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu1368	journal	August 2014
Radio Galaxy Zoo: host galaxies and radio morphologies derived from visual inspection Banfield, J. K.; Wong, O. I.; Willett, K. W. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 453, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1688	journal	September 2015
Radio interferometric gain calibration as a complex optimization problem Smirnov, O. M.; Tasse, C. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 449, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv418	journal	April 2015
Radio Galaxy Zoo: discovery of a poor cluster through a giant wide-angle tail radio galaxy Banfield, J. K.; Andernach, H.; Kapińska, A. D. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 460, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw1067	journal	May 2016
cubical – fast radio interferometric calibration suite exploiting complex optimization Kenyon, J. S.; Smirnov, O. M.; Grobler, T. L. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 478, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1221	journal	May 2018
How frequent are close supermassive binary black holes in powerful jet sources? Krause, Martin G. H.; Shabala, Stanislav S.; Hardcastle, Martin J. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 482, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty2558	journal	September 2018
On energetics and progenitors of odd radio circles: a causal connection with tidal disruption of stars? Omar, Amitesh Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Vol. 516, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slac081	journal	July 2022
Isolation Forest Liu, Fei Tony; Ting, Kai Ming; Zhou, Zhi-Hua 2008 Eighth IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDM.2008.17	conference	December 2008
Tracing Black Hole Mergers Through Radio Lobe Morphology Merritt, D. Science, Vol. 297, Issue 5585 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1074688	journal	August 2002
Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array Braun, Robert; Bourke, T. L.; Green, James A. Proceedings of Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array — PoS(AASKA14) https://doi.org/10.22323/1.215.0174	conference	May 2015
The Astropy Project: Building an Open-science Project and Status of the v2.0 Core Package Price-Whelan, A. M.; Sipőcz, B. M.; Günther, H. M. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 156, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aabc4f	journal	August 2018
Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys Dey, Arjun; Schlegel, David J.; Lang, Dustin The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 157, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab089d	journal	April 2019
Target Selection and Validation of DESI Luminous Red Galaxies Zhou, Rongpu; Dey, Biprateep; Newman, Jeffrey A. The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 165, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aca5fb	journal	January 2023
The Curious Case of the “Heartworm” Nebula Cotton, W. D.; Camilo, F.; Becker, W. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 934, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac6fd3	journal	July 2022
The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package* No authors listed The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 935, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac7c74	journal	August 2022
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: The Photometric Data Set for Cosmology Drlica-Wagner, A.; Sevilla-Noarbe, I.; Rykoff, E. S. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 235, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/aab4f5	journal	April 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 3 Results: Photometric Data Set for Cosmology Sevilla-Noarbe, I.; Bechtol, K.; Carrasco Kind, M. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 254, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/abeb66	journal	May 2021
The Dark Energy Survey Data Release 2 Abbott, T. M. C.; Adamów, M.; Aguena, M. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Vol. 255, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ac00b3	journal	July 2021
The Deepest Chandra View of RBS 797: Evidence for Two Pairs of Equidistant X-ray Cavities Ubertosi, F.; Gitti, M.; Brighenti, F. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 923, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac374c	journal	December 2021
Non-Local Means Denoising Buades, Antoni; Coll, Bartomeu; Morel, Jean-Michel Image Processing On Line, Vol. 1 https://doi.org/10.5201/ipol.2011.bcm_nlm	journal	January 2011

Similar Records

Discovery of peculiar radio morphologies with ASKAP using unsupervised machine learning

Journal Article · Fri Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2021 · Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia · OSTI ID:2419771

Discovery of a new extragalactic circular radio source with ASKAP: ORC J0102–2450

Journal Article · Thu Apr 29 20:00:00 EDT 2021 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters · OSTI ID:1806349

Astronomaly at scale: searching for anomalies amongst 4 million galaxies

Journal Article · Wed Feb 21 19:00:00 EST 2024 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · OSTI ID:2318767

Related Subjects

Astronomy & Astrophysics

A unique, ring-like radio source with quadrilateral structure detected with machine learning

Citation Formats

References (45)

Similar Records

Related Subjects