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Published January 20, 2012 | Published
Journal Article Open

Chandra X-ray Observations of the Redshift 1.53 Radio-Loud Quasar 3C 270.1

Abstract

Chandra X-ray observations of the high redshift (z = 1.532) radio-loud quasar 3C 270.1 in 2008 February show the nucleus to have a power-law spectrum, Γ = 1.66 ± 0.08, typical of a radio-loud quasar, and a marginally detected Fe Kα emission line. The data also reveal extended X-ray emission, about half of which is associated with the radio emission from this source. The southern emission is co-spatial with the radio lobe and peaks at the position of the double radio hot spot. Modeling this hot spot, including Spitzer upper limits, rules out synchrotron emission from a single power-law population of electrons, favoring inverse Compton emission with a field of ~11 nT, roughly a third of the equipartition value. The northern emission is concentrated close to the location of a 40° bend where the radio jet is presumed to encounter an external medium. It can be explained by inverse Compton emission involving cosmic microwave background photons with a field of ~3 nT, a factor of 7-10 below the equipartition value. The remaining, more diffuse X-ray emission is harder (HR = –0.09 ± 0.22). With only 22.8 ± 5.6 counts, the spectral form cannot be constrained. Assuming thermal emission with a temperature of 4 keV yields an estimate for the luminosity of 1.8× 10^(44) erg s^(–1), consistent with the luminosity-temperature relation of lower-redshift clusters. However, deeper Chandra X-ray observations are required to delineate the spatial distribution and better constrain the spectrum of the diffuse emission to verify that we have detected X-ray emission from a high-redshift cluster.

Additional Information

© 2012 American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 June 15; accepted 2011 September 8; published 2012 January 3. Support for this work was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award Number G08-9106X issued by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of the National Aeronautics Space Administration under contract NAS8-03060 (Chandra X-ray Center). The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.

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