PKS 2155-152

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PKS 2155-152
PKS 2155-152 from the DESI Legacy Surveys.jpg
PKS 2155-152 imaged by DESI Legacy Surveys
Observation data (J2000.0 epoch)
Constellation Capricornus
Right ascension 21h 58m 06.28s [1]
Declination −15° 01′ 09.32″ [1]
Redshift 0.672000 [1]
Heliocentric radial velocity 201,461 km/s [1]
Distance 6.358 Gly
Apparent magnitude  (V)18.30
Apparent magnitude  (B)18.63
Characteristics
Type Opt.var.; HPQ BLLAC [1]
Other designations
6dF J2158063-150109, 2MASSI J2158062-150109, 2MASS J21580628-1501093, LEDA 2831143, PMN J2158-1501, OX -192, NVSS J215806-150109, VLSS J2158.1-1501, WMAP 018, 1H 2158-150, RX J2158.1-1500 [1]

PKS 2155-152 is an optically violent variable [2] BL Lacertae object located in the southern constellation of Capricornus. It has a redshift of (z) 0.672 [1] [3] and it was first discovered as an astronomical radio source in 1970 by astronomers whom they designated it as OX -192. [4]

Contents

Description

PKS 2155-152 is radio-loud quasar with a steep radio spectrum with a bolometric luminosity of 45.67 erg s−1 and a supermassive black hole mass of 7.59 Mʘ. [5] [6] It is classified as a blazar due to its variability on the electromagnetic spectrum, showing a 3.5 magnitude outburst detected towards the end of the 19th century in 1899. Between the years 1933, 1941 and in 1948, the object had several outbursts of around 3 magnitudes. [2] When observed in 1995, it showed a variability timescale of approximately 15.5 days. [5]

The radio structure of PKS 2155-152 is compact. An observation with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) conducted in May 1993, found the source has a core-jet morphology, comprising of a unresolved radio core whose brightness temperature is estimated to be more than 6.7 x 1011 Kelvin. [7] When detected with Very Long Baseline Array (VLA) it has a bright core with a jet pointing towards the southern direction. [8] Further investigations suggested the jet may be extending south-west instead which was confirmed by Pushkarev. [9] An X-ray jet counterpart was found in 2011 by Chandra X-ray Observatory with its X-ray emission terminating at 8 arcseconds from the core. [10]

It is confirmed that PKS 2155-152 is highly polarized. [11] Based on results, it has polarization in both its core and inside a second jet component south-west. VLBI observations showed the core polarization was shown varying while the jet component polarization remained constant. [12] A study involving calculating the vector sum of the two polarized components in the object via model fitting and with VLA, found a sharp drastic decrease in flux density suggesting most of the variations occurred inside the core. [9] In January 2025, Yongyun Chen found the host galaxy of PKS 2155-152 has a logarithm star formation of 3.386 and a stellar mass of 11.97. [13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "NED search results for PKS 2155-152". NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. Retrieved 2025-06-28.
  2. 1 2 Bozyan, Elizabeth P.; Hemenway, Paul D.; Argue, A. Noel (May 1990). "Optical Variability of Extragalactic Objects Used to Tie the HIPPARCOS Reference Frame to an Extragalactic System Using Hubble Space Telescope Observations". The Astronomical Journal. 99: 1421. Bibcode:1990AJ.....99.1421B. doi:10.1086/115425. ISSN   0004-6256.
  3. ↑ White, Graeme L.; Jauncey, David L.; Savage, Ann; Wright, Alan E.; Batty, Michael J.; Peterson, Bruce A.; Gulkis, Sam (April 1988). "Redshifts of Southern Radio Sources. VII". The Astrophysical Journal. 327: 561. Bibcode:1988ApJ...327..561W. doi:10.1086/166216. ISSN   0004-637X.
  4. ↑ Andrew, B. H.; Kraus, J. D. (January 1970). "Radio Sources with Flat Spectra". The Astrophysical Journal. 159: L45 –L50. Bibcode:1970ApJ...159L..45A. doi:10.1086/180475. ISSN   0004-637X.
  5. 1 2 Romero, G. E.; Combi, J. A. (July 1995). "Variability in the Southern blazars PKS 1921-293 and PKS 2155-152". Astrophysics and Space Science. 229 (1): 23–32. Bibcode:1995Ap&SS.229...23R. doi:10.1007/BF00658563. ISSN   0004-640X.
  6. ↑ Woo, Jong-Hak; Urry, C. Megan (November 2002). "Active Galactic Nucleus Black Hole Masses and Bolometric Luminosities". The Astrophysical Journal. 579 (2): 530–544. arXiv: astro-ph/0207249 . Bibcode:2002ApJ...579..530W. doi:10.1086/342878. ISSN   0004-637X.
  7. ↑ Shen, Z.-Q.; Wan, T.-S.; Moran, J. M.; Jauncey, D. L.; Reynolds, J. E. (April 1998). "A 5 GHz Southern Hemisphere VLBI Survey of Compact Radio Sources. II". The Astronomical Journal. 115 (4): 1357–1370. arXiv: astro-ph/9803104 . Bibcode:1998AJ....115.1357S. doi:10.1086/300284.
  8. ↑ Zensus, J. A.; Ros, E.; Kellermann, K. I.; Cohen, M. H.; Vermeulen, R. C. (August 2002). "Sub-milliarcsecond Imaging of Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Additional Sources". The Astronomical Journal. 124 (2): 662–674. arXiv: astro-ph/0205076 . Bibcode:2002AJ....124..662Z. doi:10.1086/341585.
  9. 1 2 Gabuzda, D. C.; Kochenov, P. YU.; Cawthorne, T. V. (December 21, 2000). "Serendipitous VLBI observations of polarization intraday variability in three BL Lacertae objects". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 319 (4): 1125–1135. Bibcode:2000MNRAS.319.1125G. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03933.x . ISSN   0035-8711.
  10. ↑ Hogan, Brandon S.; Lister, Matthew L.; Kharb, Preeti; Marshall, Herman L.; Cooper, Nathaniel J. (2011-03-09). "CHANDRADISCOVERY OF 10 NEW X-RAY JETS ASSOCIATED WITH FR II RADIO CORE-SELECTED AGNs IN THE MOJAVE SAMPLE". The Astrophysical Journal. 730 (2): 92. arXiv: 1101.5342 . Bibcode:2011ApJ...730...92H. doi:10.1088/0004-637x/730/2/92. ISSN   0004-637X.
  11. ↑ Brindle, C.; Hough, J. H.; Bailey, J. A.; Axon, D. J.; Hyland, A. R. (August 1986). "Simultaneous optical and infrared polarization measurements of blazars". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 221 (3): 739–768. doi: 10.1093/mnras/221.3.739 . ISSN   0035-8711.
  12. ↑ Gabuzda, D. C.; Pushkarev, A. B.; Cawthorne, T. V. (December 2000). "Analysis of λ=6cm VLBI polarization observations of a complete sample of northern BL Lacertae objects". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 319 (4): 1109–1124. arXiv: astro-ph/0307192 . Bibcode:2000MNRAS.319.1109G. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03932.x . ISSN   0035-8711.
  13. ↑ Chen, Yongyun; Gu, Qiusheng; Fan, Junhui; Guo, Xiaotong; Yu, Xiaoling (January 2025). "Observational Evidence for a Correlation between the Magnetic Field of Jets and Star Formation Rate in Host Galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal. 978 (2): 125. arXiv: 2503.02325 . Bibcode:2025ApJ...978..125C. doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad9b8a .
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