Impact of the local environment on the properties of radio galaxies: a study of galaxies identified from the Texas Survey

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5573720

Bozyan, E P

A sample of 3196 radio sources, with absolute value b greater than or equal to 20/sup 0/ from the +36/sup 0/ strip of the 365 MHz Texas Survey, searched for optical counterparts, forms a large homogeneous data base used to investigate the incidence of and importance of, as a class of radio sources, optically first ranked galaxies occurring in small groups. The optical identification rate, for this sample, is 27%, with the identifications equally divided into red (galaxies) and blue (QSO and QSO-like) objects. Statistical tests show that the galaxies and QSO plus QSO-like objects come from different radio populations and that their distribution of number as a function of apparent magnitude is different. Detailed optical and radio observations of a subset of twenty of the radio galaxies shows that the vast majority, probably all, are in interacting systems and that local environment plays a definite role. Divided by optical morphology, the combined optical luminosity of an interacting system is correlated with its radio luminosity. Examples taken from the literature confirm and extend these correlations to cluster radio galaxies. Using the sample of twenty to calibrate the entire sample of identified radio galaxies (405), a bivariate radio luminosity function was constructed.

• Research Organization: Texas Univ., Austin (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5573720
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
QUASARS
RADIO GALAXIES
LUMINOSITY
RADIOWAVE RADIATION
SPECTRA
SURVEYS
VISIBLE RADIATION
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
GALAXIES
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
640103* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Quasi-Stellar
Radio
& X-Ray Sources- (-1987)