arXiv subjects

M. Sasada

Publications and source records attributed to M. Sasada.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Photopolarimetric monitoring of 41 blazars in the optical and near-infrared bands with the Kanata telescope

Blazars are a kind of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in which a relativistic jet is considered to be directed along the line of sight. They are characterized by strong and rapid variability of the flux and high polarization. We performed a monitoring of 41 blazars in the optical and near-infrared regions from 2008 to 2009 using TRISPEC attached to the "Kanata" 1.5-m telescope. In this paper, we report the correlation of the flux, color and polarization using our data, and discuss universal features for blazars, which have not fully been established. Three blazars (3C 454.3, QSO 0454$-$234, and PKS 1510$-$089) tended to be redder when they were brighter, only during their faint states. This color behavior suggests that the contribution of a thermal component is strong in the faint states for those objects. Excluding this "redder-when-brighter" phase, we found that 24 blazars tended to be bluer when they were brighter. This number corresponds to 83% among well-observed objects which we observed for $>10$ nights. Thus, we conclude that the "bluer-when-brighter" trend is a universal feature for blazars. On the other hand, the correlation of the flux and the polarization degree is relatively weak; only 10 objects showed a significant positive correlation. We also investigated the luminosity-dependence of the color and polarization, and found that lower luminosity objects have smaller variation amplitudes both in the flux, color, and polarization degree.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2009

Optical and Near-Infrared Photometric Observation during the Superoutburst of the WZ Sge-Type Dwarf Nova, V455 Andromedae

We report on optical and infrared photometric observations of a WZ Sge-type dwarf nova, V455 And during a superoutburst in 2007. These observations were performed with the KANATA (V, J, and K_s bands) and MITSuME (g', Rc, and Ic bands) telescopes. Our 6-band simultaneous observations allowed us to investigate the temporal variation of the temperature and the size of the emitting region associated with the superoutburst and short-term modulations, such as early and ordinary superhumps. A hot (>11000 K) accretion disk suddenly disappeared when the superoutburst finished, while blackbody emission, probably from the disk, still remained dominant in the optical region with a moderately high temperature (~8000 K). This indicates that a substantial amount of gas was stored in the disk even after the outburst. This remnant matter may be a sign of an expected mass-reservoir which can trigger echo outbursts observed in several WZ Sge stars. The color variation associated with superhumps indicates that viscous heating in a superhump source stopped on the way to the superhump maximum, and a subsequent expansion of a low-temperature region made the maximum. The color variation of early superhumps was totally different from that of superhumps: the object was bluest at the early superhump minimum. The temperature of the early superhump light source was lower than that of an underlying component, indicating that the early superhump light source was a vertically expanded low-temperature region at the outermost part of the disk.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2009

Early phase observations of extremely luminous Type Ia Supernova 2009dc

We present early phase observations in optical and near-infrared wavelengths for the extremely luminous Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) 2009dc. The decline rate of the light curve is $Δm_{15}(B)=0.65\pm 0.03$, which is one of the slowest among SNe Ia. The peak $V$-band absolute magnitude is $M_{V}=-19.90\pm 0.15$ mag even if the host extinction is $A_{V}=0$ mag. It reaches $M_{V}=-20.19\pm 0.19$ mag for the host extinction of $A_{V}=0.29$ mag as inferred from the observed Na {\sc i} D line absorption in the host. Our $JHK_{s}$-band photometry shows that the SN is one of the most luminous SNe Ia also in near-infrared wavelengths. These results indicate that SN 2009dc belongs to the most luminous class of SNe Ia, like SN 2003fg and SN 2006gz. We estimate the ejected $^{56}$Ni mass of $1.2\pm 0.3$ $\Msun$ for no host extinction case (or 1.6$\pm$ 0.4 M$_{\odot}$ for the host extinction of $A_{V}=0.29$ mag). The C {\sc ii} $λ$6580 absorption line keeps visible until a week after maximum, which diminished in SN 2006gz before its maximum brightness. The line velocity of Si {\sc ii} $λ$6355 is about 8000 km s$^{-1}$ around the maximum, being considerably slower than that of SN 2006gz, while comparable to that of SN 2003fg. The velocity of the C {\sc ii} line is almost comparable to that of the Si {\sc ii}. The presence of the carbon line suggests that thick unburned C+O layers remain after the explosion. SN 2009dc is a plausible candidate of the super-Chandrasekhar mass SNe Ia.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2009

Multiwavelength observation from radio through very-high-energy Gamma-ray of OJ 287 during the 12-year cycle flare in 2007

We performed simultaneous multiwavelength observations of OJ 287 with the Nobeyama Millimeter Array for radio, the KANATA telescope and the KVA telescope for optical, the Suzaku satellite for X-ray and the MAGIC telescope for very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray in 2007. The observations were conducted for a quiescent state in April and in a flaring state in November-December. We clearly observed increase of fluxes from radio to X-ray bands during the flaring state while MAGIC could not detect significant VHE gamma-ray emission from the source. We could derive an upper limit (95% confidence level) of 1.7% of the Crab Nebula flux above 150 GeV from about 41.2 hours of the MAGIC observation. A simple SSC model suggests that the observed flaring activity could be caused by evolutions in the distribution of the electron population rather than changes of the magnetic field strength or Doppler beaming factor in the jet.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2008

Outburst of a WZ Sge-type dwarf nova, AL Com in 2007

We report photometric observations of AL Com during its rare outburst in 2007. The light curve is reminiscent of its past superoutbursts in 1995 and 2001, except for the rebrightening phase after the main superoutburst. During the rebrightening phase in 2007, we found clear modulations between V=16.2-15.2. In conjunction with the lack of prominent superhumps in our time-series observations, the modulations can most naturally be interpreted as repetitive short rebrightenings with a cycle of 1-2 days. The rebrightening characteristics in 2007 are different from those in 1995 and 2001. This indicates that the type of rebrightenings in WZ Sge stars depends not on binary parameters of objects, but on the mass-accretion process for each outburst.

astro-ph↗