QSOs

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QSOs

• The First Symposium

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Background

• USAF Pilot (retired)
• Top Secret - SCI
• Worked On
• Nuclear Weapons
• Overhead Reconnaissance
• Intelligence
• Electronic Warfare
• Flown and Worked in Area
  51

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Grasslands Observatory 651Sabino Canyon
Observatory 854
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Nomenclature

• Quasi-Stellar Radio Sources (1963)
• Newly Discovered Radio Sources
• Quasars coined by H. Chiu at Conference
• Quasi-Stellar Objects QSO
• 1969
• All Objects (Radio-Loud and Radio-Quiet (99))

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My Interest in Astrophysics
Began

• 16 December 1963

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First Texas Symposium on Relativistic
Astrophysics
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International Symposium
onGravitational Collapse and
other topics inRelativistic Astrophysics 16 -
18 December 1963
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(No Transcript)
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Agenda
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Agenda
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My First Symposium

• I Sat for Three Days
• Between
• F. Hoyle and W. Fowler
• Behind
• M. Schmidt and J. A. Wheeler

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Hoyle
Fowler
and Me
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3C 273 The First
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3C273
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The Dallas Newspaper
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Chronology of Compact Objects

• White Dwarf
• 1910 Faintness H. R. Russell and E. C.
  Pickering
• 1922 Term Coined by W. Luyten
• 1922 Generally Accepted
• Neutron Star
• 1934 Proposed and Coined W. Baade and F.
  Zwicky
• 1963 Cut Off Gravitationally from Detection
• 1967 Discovery of M1 Pulsar J. Bell and A.
  Hewish
• 1967 Generally Accepted

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Chronology of Compact Objects

• Black Hole
• 1915 Proposed K. Schwarzschild
• 1939 Mass and Singularity
• J. R. Oppenheimer, H. Snyder and G.M. Volkoff
• 1963 Rotating Black Holes R. Kerr
• 1967 Term Coined J. Wheeler
• Frozen Stars
• 1969 QSOs were Supermassive Black Holes
• D. Lynden-Bell
• 1974 Accretion Disk D. Lynden-Bell
• 1975 ? Generally Accepted

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Before The Symposium

• 1960 Discovery
• 1st Radio Star 3C 48 by A.Sandage
• 48th Source in the 3rd Cambridge Catalogue
• Variable so must be Stellar (Strange Spectrum)
• 1962 Discovery
• 3C 273 Occultation by C. Hazard
• December Spectrum by M. Schmidt
• Recognized Lines in March 1963

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Known Quasars (December 1963)

• 3C 48 Mag 16.06 z 0.367
• 3C 147 Mag 17.80 z 0.545
• 3C 196 Mag 17.79 z 0.871
• 3C 273 Mag 12.86 z 0.158
• 3C 286 Mag 17.25 z 0.849

( Galaxy 3C 295 - z 0.46 )
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This Symposium

• 300 of Brightest Astronomers and Astrophysicists
• Wrestling with the New Data on Quasars
• Looking for a New Ideas/Theories
• Give and Take Became a Debate of Ideas
• Challenges to Each New Idea
• Many Wild Ideas Were Proposed
• Kick Started a Paradigm Shift in Thinking

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Symposium

• Unheard of Distances 2 to 9 Billion Light Years
• 50 Times the Luminosity of Brightest Galaxy
• Very Small A Few Light Months Across
• The Question What is The Energy Source?
• Supernova Chain Reactions (G. Burbidge)
• Collision of a Galaxy and a Anti-Galaxy
• Condensation of One Million White Dwarfs
• Gravitational Collapse of Superstar (Hoyle and
  Fowler)
• Gravitational Energy Release (Hoyle and Fowler)

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Features of Quasars

• Massive Objects 108 Solar Mass
• Less Than One Parsec Across
• Are a Coherent Mass (not Stars)
• Lifetimes of at Least 106 Years
• Variations in Optical of 30/year
• Radiate in Radio, More Strongly in Optical
• Tenuous Matter
• Particle-Number Density of the Order of 107/cm3
• Total Energy 106 Solar Mass

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Discussion

• Discussed
• Compact Objects
• White Dwarfs
• Superstars 106 to 109 Solar Mass
• Singularities
• (Schwarzschild)
• Implosion
• Gravitational Collapse
• Gravitational Energy Released 1062 to 1064 ergs

• Not Discussed
• Accretion Disks
• Event Horizon
• Black Holes

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Hoyles Ideas
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11 March 1966
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Quasi-Poem

• Twinkle, Twinkle, Quasi-Star
• Twinkle, Twinkle, Quasi-Star
• Biggest puzzle from afar
• How unlike the other ones
• Brighter than a billion suns
• Twinkle, Twinkle, Quasi-Star
• How I wonder what you are.

George Gamow
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Heavens New Enigma

• A Most Memorable Experience
• Life long interest in QSOs
• From 3C 273 to ..

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3C273
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Visual Observation

• 23 December 1963

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We have encountered a most bafflinggroup of
astronomical objects. Whether fundamental new
processes lie behind their brilliant but
ephemeral appearance, orwhether our imaginations
are still too limitedremains for the future to
determine. Jesse
L. Greenstein
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QSOs

• Total 117,792
• Most Distant
• J11485251 z 6.419
• Most Luminous
• Ultraluminous BAL QSO APM082795255
• 5 x 1015L ( 25,000 Milky Ways)

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Questions
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3C 273
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3C273
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Redshift