2008 September 12
The start of the semester was pretty busy with non-science things (such as, well, going on vacation), but now I’m back and at it.
Earlier this week I did some background reading. Geoff had me go over a couple of papers relating to compact symmetric objects (CSOs), an unusual kind of radio source that’s bright but very young. Let’s see, we have …
- The Statistics and Ages of Compact Symmetric Objects
- Compact Symmetric Objects and the Evolution of Powerful Extragalatic Radio Sources
- Accurate Formula for the Self-Compton X-Ray Flux Density from a Uniform, Spherical, Compact Radio Source
- Compton and Synchrotron Processes in Spherically-Symmetric Non-thermal Sources
- Relativistic Jets as X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Sources
- Relativistic Jets as Compact Radio Sources
The idea is that CSOs are not terribly well-understood and that broadband spectra in the centimeter regime (e.g., what I’m trying to do with the ATA) could provide important observational data. The latter papers lay the theoretical groundwork for undestanding synchrotron jet spectra, which is what the centimeter emission of these sources likely represents.