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We report millimeter-VLBI results of low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (M 84 and M 87) up to 88 GHz with source-frequency phase-referencing observations. We detected the weak VLBI core and obtained the first image of M 84 at 88 GHz. The derived brightness temperature of M 84 core was about 7.2$\times$10$^9$ K, which could serve as a lower limit as the core down to 30 Schwarzschild radii was still un-resolved in our 88 GHz observations. We successfully determined the core-shifts of M 87 at 22-44 GHz and 44-88 GHz through source-frequency phase-referencing technique. The jet apex of M 87 could be deduced at about 46 $\mu$as upstream of the 43 GHz core from core-shift measurements. The estimated magnetic field strength of the 88 GHz core of M 87 is 4.8$\pm$2.4 G, which is at the same magnitude of 1-30 G near the event horizon probed by the Event Horizon Telescope., Comment: Accept for publication in ApJL

We report the results of our systematic survey for Galactic 6.7 GHz Class II CH$_3$OH maser emission toward a sample of young stellar objects. The survey was conducted with the Shanghai Tianma Radio Telescope (TMRT). The sample consists of 3348 sources selected from the all-sky \emph{Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)} point source catalog. We have discussed the selection criteria in detail and the detection results of those at high Galactic latitudes (i.e. $|b|>$ 2$^\circ$) in a previous paper (paper I). Here, we present the results from the survey of those at low Galactic latitudes, i.e. $|b, 46 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables

We performed a systematic 6.7 GHz Class \uppercase\expandafter{\romannumeral2} methanol maser survey using the Shanghai Tianma Radio Telescope toward targets selected from the all-sky \emph{Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)} point catalog. In this paper, we report the results from the survey of those at high Galactic latitudes, i.e. $|b|>$ 2$^\circ$. Of 1473 selected \emph{WISE} point sources at high latitude, 17 point positions that were actually associated with 12 sources were detected with maser emission, reflecting the rarity (1$-$2\%) of methanol masers in the region away from the Galactic plane. Out of the 12 sources, 3 are detected for the first time. The spectral energy distribution (SED) at infrared bands shows that these new detected masers occur in the massive star forming regions. Compared to previous detections, the methanol maser changes significantly in both spectral profiles and flux densities. The infrared \emph{WISE} images show that almost all of these masers are located in the positions of the bright \emph{WISE} point sources. Compared with the methanol masers at the Galactic plane, these high-latitude methanol masers provide good tracers for investigating the physics and kinematics around massive young stellar objects, because they are believed to be less affected by the surrounding cluster environment., 27pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Published in ApJ

In this paper, we reported the measured results of the antenna efficiency, sensitivity, and system noise temperature of the TM65m radio telescope. The key parameters describing a radio astronomy receiving system were introduced at first. Then, we discussed the measurement methods and the measuring errors. Finally, the measured results of the antenna efficiency, sensitivity, and system noise temperature performances at the L, S, C, and X bands were given. The results show that the efficiency and SEFD (System Equivalent Flux Density) decrease dramatically at both low and high elevations when the position of the subreflector is fixed. The antenna efficiencies at the C and X bands can be raised to 60% and more in the whole elevation range when the subreflector (servo) model is activated. The system noise temperature is independent to the subreflector model. Among the four wavebands, the C-band sensitivity and system noise temperature are optimal.

The main purpose for developing biofuel is to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, but the comprehensive environmental impact of such fuels is not clear. Life cycle analysis (LCA), as a complete comprehensive analysis method, has been widely used in bioenergy assessment studies. Great efforts have been directed toward establishing an efficient method for comprehensively estimating the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction potential from the large-scale cultivation of energy plants by combining LCA with ecosystem/biogeochemical process models. LCA presents a general framework for evaluating the energy consumption and GHG emission from energy crop planting, yield acquisition, production, product use, and postprocessing. Meanwhile, ecosystem/biogeochemical process models are adopted to simulate the fluxes and storage of energy, water, carbon, and nitrogen in the soil-plant (energy crops) soil continuum. Although clear progress has been made in recent years, some problems still exist in current studies and should be addressed. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art method for estimating GHG emission reduction through developing energy crops and introduces in detail a new approach for assessing GHG emission reduction by combining LCA with biogeochemical process models. The main achievements of this study along with the problems in current studies are described and discussed.

During the Chinese Lunar Project ChangE-2 mission, a series of experiments on ΔDOR (delta differential one-way ranging) technology was carried out over a two week period starting on April 2, 2011. ΔDOR technology was first adopted in China deep space navigation, and the ΔDOR delay observables were obtained and used for orbit determination. In this paper, we introduce the ΔDOR observing technology, including the ΔDOR measurement principles. We also discuss the experiment design, the rules for selecting the calibration quasars, the switching time choice, the signal recording setup for the channels, the ΔDOR data processing method implemented in the software, and our analysis of the error sources of the ΔDOR delay and its contribution to orbit determination based on the characteristics of the Chinese VLBI network. Through these analyses and verification studies on the orbit determination from the satellite orbits in the CE-1 and CE-2 missions, we conclude that the accuracy of the ΔDOR delay is about 0.5 ns, an improvement of about one order of magnitude compared with that from S-band telemetry signals of less than 1 MHz. This study presents an important technique for high precision orbit determination of lunar and deep space explorations.

We report Shanghai Tian Ma Radio Telescope detections of several long carbon-chain molecules at C and Ku band, including HC3N, HC5N, HC7N, HC9N, C3S, C6H and C8H toward the starless cloud Serpens South 1a. We detected some transitions (HC9N J=13-12 F=12-11 and F=14-13, H13CCCN J=2-1 F=1-0 and F=1-1, HC13CCN J=2-1 F=2-2, F=1-0 and F=1-1, HCC13CN J=2-1 F=1-0 and F=1-1) and resolved some hyperfine components (HC5N J=6-5 F=5-4, H13CCCN J=2-1 F=2-1) for the first time in the interstellar medium. The column densities of these carbon-chain molecules in a range of 10^{12}-10^{13} cm^{-2} are comparable to two carbon-chain molecule rich sources, TMC-1 and Lupus-1A. The abundance ratios are 1.00:(1.11\pm0.15):(1.47\pm0.18) for [H13CCCN]:[HC13CCN]:[HCC13CN]. This result implies that the 13C isotope is also concentrated in the carbon atom adjacent to the nitrogen atom in HC3N in Serpens south 1a, which is similar to TMC-1. The [HC3N]/[H13CCCN] ratio of 78\pm9, the [HC3N]/[HC13CCN] ratio of 70\pm8, and the [HC3N]/[HCC13CN] ratio of 53\pm4 are also comparable to those in TMC-1. In any case, Serpens South 1a proves a testing ground for understanding carbon-chain chemistry., 16 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We present the results of European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (EVN) and Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) 5-GHz observations of nine ultra-high-energy synchrotron-peak BL Lacs (UHBLs), consisting of all BL Lacs with log?(?peak/Hz) > 20 from the work of Nieppola et al. The radio structure was investigated for these sources, in combination with available Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) archive data. We found that a corejet structure is detected in five sources, while four sources only have a compact core at the pc scale. The cores of all sources show high brightness temperature (with mean and median values log?(Tb/K) 11), which implies that the beaming effect is likely present in all sources. When multi-epoch Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data are available, we find no significant variations for either core or total flux density in two sources (2E 0414+0057 and EXO 0706.1+5913) and no evident proper motion in 2E 0414+0057, while superluminal motion is likely detected in EXO 0706.1+5913. Our sources are found to be less compact than the typical high-frequency peaked BL Lac objects (HBLs) of Giroletti et al., by comparing the ratio of the VLBI total flux and the core flux at the arcsec scale. Combining all our results, we propose that the beaming effect might be present in the jets of UHBLs; however, it is likely weaker than that for typical HBLs. Moreover, we found by comparing the distributions of redshift and radio luminosity that UHBLs could be less Doppler-beamed versions of HBLs with similar jet power. These results are in good consistence with the expectations of our previous work.

Multi-frequency same-beam VLBI means that two explorers with a small separation angle are simultaneously observed with the main beam of receiving antennas. In the same-beam VLBI, the differential phase delay between two explorers and two receiving telescopes can be obtained with a small error of several picoseconds. The differential phase delay, as the observable of the same-beam VLBI, gives the separation angular information of the two explorers in the celestial sphere. The two-dimensional relative position on the plane-of-sky can thus be precisely determined with an error of less than 1 m for a distance of 3.8×105 km far away from the earth, by using the differential phase delay obtained with the four Chinese VLBI stations. The relative position of a lunar rover on the lunar surface can be determined with an error of 10 m by using the differential phase delay data and the range data for the lander when the lunar topography near the rover and the lander can be determined with an error of 10 m.

We report on the first VLBI image of the M81 nucleus (M81*) at a wavelength of 3.4 mm, obtained with the source-frequency phase-referencing (SFPR) technique. Thanks to the SFPR calibration, the coherent integration time could be eventually increased by more than an order of magnitude, which enabled the detection of fringes at the level of 45 mJy beam-1 with a dynamic range higher than 130:1. This paves the way toward future mm/sub-mm VLBI observations of weaker sources. From the analysis of the M81* visibilities, a core size of ~50 uas at 3.4 mm was estimated. This follows the power-law relationship with wavelength lambda^0.88, reported previously at lower frequencies. These results constrain the core size (at 3.4 mm) to a minimum of ~80 Schwarzschild radii of M81*., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures,accepted by ApJ Letter

We estimate the intrinsic luminosities and synchrotron peak frequency using the derived Doppler factor for a sample of 170 BL Lac objects, of which the synchrotron peak frequency are derived by fitting the SED constructed with the collected multi-band data from literatures. We find that the debeamed radio and optical core luminosities follow the same correlation found for FR I radio galaxies, which is in support of the unification of the BL Lac objects and the FR I galaxies based on orientation. For the debeamed luminosity at synchrotron peak frequency, we find a significant positive correlation between the luminosity and intrinsic synchrotron peak frequency. This implies that the more powerful sources may have the majority of jet emission at higher frequency. At synchrotron peak frequency, the intrinsic luminosity and black hole mass show strong positive correlation, while mild correlation is found in the case of jet power, indicating that the more powerful sources may have heavier black hole., 13 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Chjaa

The K¨ onigl inhomogeneous jet model can successfully reproduce most observa- tional features of jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN), when suitable physical parameters are adopted. We improve K¨ onigl's calculations on the core emission from the jet with a small viewing angle �0 ∼ � (� is half opening angle of the conical jet). The proper motion of the jet component provides a constraint on the jet kinematics. Based on the inhomogeneous jet model, we use the proper motion data of the jet component to calculate the minimal kinetic luminosity of the jet required to reproduce the core emission measured by the very-long- baseline interferometry (VLBI) for a sample of BL Lac objects. Our results show that the minimal kinetic luminosity is slightly higher than the bolometric luminosity for most sources in the sample, which implies that radiatively inefficient accretion flows (RIAFs) may be in those BL Lac objects, or/and the properties of their broad-line regions (BLRs) are signifi- cantly different from flat-spectrum radio-loud quasars.

In this paper, we report radio observations of the Galactic Center magnetar PSR J1745-2900 at six epochs between June and October, 2014. These observations were carried out using the new Shanghai Tian Ma Radio Telescope at a frequency of 8.6 GHz. Both the flux density and integrated profile of PSR J1745-2900 show dramatic changes from epoch to epoch showing that the pulsar was in its "erratic" phase. On MJD 56836, the flux density of this magnetar was about 8.7 mJy, which was ten times large than that reported at the time of discovery, enabling a single-pulse analysis. The emission is dominated by narrow "spiky" pulses which follow a log-normal distribution in peak flux density. From 1913 pulses, we detected 53 pulses whose peak flux density is ten times greater than that of the integrated profile. They are concentrated in pulse phase at the peaks of the integrated profile. The pulse widths at the 50% level of these bright pulses was between 0.2 to 0.9 deg, much narrower than that of integrated profile (~12 deg). The observed pulse widths may be limited by interstellar scattering. No clear correlation was found between the widths and peak flux density of these pulses and no evidence was found for subpulse drifting. Relatively strong spiky pulses are also detected in the other five epochs of observation, showing the same properties as that detected in MJD 56836. These strong spiky pulses cannot be classified as "giant" pulses but are more closely related to normal pulse emission., Comment: 21 papes, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ

The jet formation is thought to be closely connected with the mass of central supermassive black hole in Active Galactic Nuclei. The radio luminosity commonly used in investigating this issue is merely an indirect measure of the energy transported through the jets from the central engine, and severely Doppler boosted in core-dominated radio quasars. In this work, we investigate the relationship between the jet power and black hole mass, by estimating the jet power using extrapolated extended 151 MHz flux density from the VLA 5 GHz extended radio emission, for a sample of 146 radio loud quasars complied from literature. After removing the effect of relativistic beaming in the radio and optical emission, we find a significant intrinsic correlation between the jet power and black hole mass. It strongly implies that the jet power, so as jet formation, is closely connected with the black hole this http URL eliminate the beaming effect in the conventional radio loudness, we define a new radio loudness as the ratio of the radio extended luminosity to the optical luminosity estimated from the broad line this http URL a tentatively combined sample of radio quiet with our radio loud quasars, the apparent gap around the conventional radio loudness R=10 is not prominent for the new-defined radio loudness. In this combined sample, we find a significant correlation between the black hole mass and new-defined radio loudness.

In this paper, the method of discrete correlation function proposed by Edelson and Krolik is introduced in some details. This method is suitable for correlation analysis of flux density data in various wavebands that are distributed unevenly in time due to irregularity of the observations. We have tested the method in the two extreme cases of perfect and zero correlation. The testing results prove that the DCF method is feasible. With this method, we have made correlation analysis of the flux densities at four wavebands of the AO 0235 + 164. The results show that the variations of flux density at 5 GHz, 8 GHz, 14.5 GHz and the optical B band are apparently correlated, and that the variation comes earlier in the higher frequency band than in the lower. This may imply that either the radiations at these bands (from radio to optical) originate from the same mechanism, or that the radiations are correlated. In addition, we have also found the spectral index in the radio band to vary in time, mainly in the form of spectrum inversion. Various lines of evidence indicate that the radio outbursts of AO 0235 + 164 are associated with the forming of shock waves in relativistic jets, and the spectral analysis of multiple wavebands and the study of spectral evolution may be an effective way to reveal the underlying relationship.

We present multi-frequency, high resolution, radio structures of NRAO 150 with VLBA and EVN array respectively, both of which show a very collimated one-sided jet structure beyond an angular distance of 80 mas. Model fitting is performed for observations at 2.3 GHz and 8.4 GHz which reveal the source to be consisting of several components at position angle ∼ 30ˆ. According to the light curves at 4.8 GHz, 8.0 GHz and 14.5 GHz an outburst is currently occurring in its rising stage, which suggests that a new component is probably in the course of forming. Spectral analysis reveals that the new component probably has a higher spectral index. The maximum proper motion of ∼0.46 mas yr -1 is expected if we suppose that the new component is moving away from core at the beginning of the flaring.

Using the hybrid mapping technique based on self-calibration and CLEAN algorithms, we reprocessed the data of an early (1976) VLBI observation (by T. J. Pearson et al.) of quasar 3C 286 at 18 cm, and obtained a high quality CLEAN map. We can get more information from the new map than from the old one. Four Gaussian models were used to fit the calibrated UV data. We found that the central bright region could be resolved into two compact components. This was in accordance with the later higher angular resolution VLBI observations. Comparing with the results of other VLBI observations, the distance between these two components was found to vary not only with frequency at a given time, but also with time at a fixed frequency.

Using the 25-m telescope of Shanghai Observatory, Joint Radio Astronomy Laboratory, 19 known maser sources and 20 candidates in H II regions were surveyed for water vapour maser emission at 22.2 GHz. 21 sources were detected, of which two are for the first time. Combining with some previous data, the time variations in the flux and velocity are obtained and discussed. Time variation in the peak flux density is common and is of two types, a change in the intensity of the same peak, and a swapping-over of two peaks. The corresponding IRAS sources were identified and the relation between the maser emission and the infrared parameters discussed. It is shown that maser production rate is more sensitive to the infrared flux intensity than the infrared colour distribution.

In this paper, we describe the second session of the Southern Hemisphere VLBI Survey, which was conducted in May 1993. Twenty five radio sources were observed and 24 sources detected, of which 23 high-resolution VLBI images for a sample of blazars in the southern hemisphere were obtained. Of these VLBI-imaging has been conducted for 15 sources for the first time and seven are high-energy (>100 MeV) γ-ray sources. Twelve sources appear to be having core-jet structures and eleven sources having single compact cores. No compact double sources were found. In particular, apparent superluminal phenomenon was noticed in two sources.

We present 3.612 cm dual-frequency radio continuum observations of Jupiter with the Shanghai Observatory 25 m radio telescope during the impact by comet SL-9. There was no appreciable variation in the daily average flux density at 3.6 cm wavelength, but a relative increase of about 20% at 12 cm was observed during the impact.

This paper describes a 5 GHz VLBI survey in the southern hemisphere. The first observation of 23 extragalactic radio sources was conducted in November 1992. Twenty VLBI images were obtained, of which 15 sources show core-jet structure, one has a two-sided jet, and three sources are unresolved. No compact double source was found. Eleven of the 16 sources with core-jet (including a two-aided jet) show evidence of jet bending. In addition, four sources appear to be superluminal, of which three sources are new.

Based on the K\"onigl's inhomogeneous jet model, we estimate the jet parameters, such as bulk Lorentz factor $\Gamma$, viewing angle $\theta$ and electron number density $n_{\rm e}$ from radio VLBI and X-ray data for a sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) assuming that the X-rays are from the jet rather than the intracluster gas. The bulk kinetic power of jets is then calculated using the derived jet parameters. We find a strong correlation between the total luminosity of broad emission lines and the bulk kinetic power of the jets. This result supports the scenario that the accretion process are tightly linked with the radio jets, though how the disk and jet are coupled is not revealed by present correlation analysis. Moreover, we find a significant correlation between the bulk kinetic power and radio extended luminosity. This implies that the emission from the radio lobes are closely related with the energy flux transported through jets from the central part of AGNs., Comment: MNRAS accepted

By cross-correlating an archival sample of 170 BL Lacs with 2 year \fermilat AGN sample, we have compiled a sample of 100 BL Lacs with \fermi detection (FBLs), and a sample of 70 non-\fermi BL Lacs (NFBLs). We compared various parameters of FBLs with those of NFBLs, including the redshift, the low frequency radio luminosity at 408 MHz ($L_{\rm 408MHz}$), the absolute magnitude of host galaxies ($M_{\rm host}$), the polarization fraction from NVSS survey ($P_{\rm NVSS}$), the observed arcsecond scale radio core flux at 5 GHz ($F_{\rm core}$) and jet Doppler factor; all the parameters are directly \textbf{measured} or derived from available data from literatures. We found that the Doppler factor is on average larger in FBLs than in NFBLs, and the $Fermi~ \gamma$-ray detection rate is higher in sources with higher Doppler factor. In contrast, there are no significant differences in terms of the intrinsic parameters of redshift, $ L_{\rm 408MHz}$, $ M_{\rm host}$ and $ P_{\rm NVSS}$. FBLs seem to have a higher probability of exhibiting measurable proper motion. These results strongly indicate a higher beaming effect in FBLs compared to NFBLs. The radio core flux is found to be strongly correlated with $\gamma$-ray flux, which remains after excluding the common dependence of the Doppler factor. At the fixed Doppler factor, FBLs have systematically larger radio core flux than NFBLs, implying lower $\gamma$-ray emission in NFBLs since the radio and $\gamma$-ray flux are significantly correlated. Our results indicate that the Doppler factor is an important parameter of $\gamma$-ray detection, the non-detection of $\gamma$-ray emission in NFBLs is likely due to low beaming effect, and/or low intrinsic $\gamma$-ray flux, and the gamma-rays are likely produced co-spatially with the arcsecond-scale radio core radiation and mainly through the SSC process.

The central black-hole masses of a sample of radio-loud quasars are estimated by using the data of $H_{\beta}$ line-width and the optical continuum luminosity. The vast majority of the quasars in this sample have black-hole masses larger than $10^{8} M_{\odot}$, while a few quasars may contain relatively smaller black-holes. We found a significant anti-correlation between the radio-loudness and the central black-hole mass. It might imply that the jet formation is governed by the black-hole mass., Comment: 5 pages, two figures are added, accepted by MNRAS Letters

We present a quantitative analysis of the time-delay effect on the cosmic background radiation (CBR) by static gravitational potential of galaxy clusters. This is primarily motivated by growing observational evidence that clusters have essentially experienced no-evolution since redshift $z\approx1$, indicating that the contribution of a time-dependent potential to CBR anisotropy discussed in literature could be rather small for the dynamically-relaxed clusters. Using the softened isothermal sphere model and the universal density profile for the mass distribution of rich clusters, we calculate the CBR anisotropy by the time-delay effect and compare it with those generated by the thermal and kinematic S-Z effects as well as by the transverse motion of clusters. While it is unlikely that the time-delay effect is detectable in the current S-Z measurement because of its small amplitude of $10^{-6}$-$10^{-7}$ and its achromaticity, it nevertheless leads to an uncertainty of $\sim10%$ in the measurement of the kinematic S-Z effect of clusters. Future cosmological application of the peculiar velocity of clusters to be measured through the S-Z effect should therefore take this uncertainty into account., Comment: 15pages,1figures,accepted by Astrophysical Journal

The K\"onigl inhomogeneous jet model is applied to investigate the properties of the jets in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). A sample of the AGNs is collected, in which the measurements of the angular size and radio flux density of the VLBI core, proper motion of the components in the jet, and X-ray flux density are included. The inhomogeneous jet parameters are derived with the same assumptions for all sources. A comparison among the parameters of different types of sources in the sample is presented. It is found that most of EGRET (Energetic Gamma-ray Experiment Telescope) sources have higher Doppler factor \delta, larger Lorentz factor \gamma, and smaller viewing angle \theta, when compared with the remaining sources in the sample. The statistical analyses show that the derived Doppler factor \delta is strongly correlated with the observed 22 GHz brightness temperature. Furthermore, there is a correlation between the relative $\gamma $-ray luminosity and the Doppler factor \delta. The implications of these results are discussed., Comment: 13 pages, 4 tables, 14 figures, AASTEX, to appear in ApJ