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What are the megahertz peaked-spectrum sources?

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Authors
Coppejans, R.
Cseh, D.
van Velzen, S.
Falcke, H.
Intema, Hubertus
Paragi, Z.
Müller, C.
Williams, W.
Frey, S.
Gurvits, L.
Körding, E.
Date
2016
Type
Journal Article

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Coppejans, R. and Cseh, D. and van Velzen, S. and Falcke, H. and Intema, H. and Paragi, Z. and Müller, C. et al. 2016. What are the megahertz peaked-spectrum sources? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 459 (3): pp. 2455-2471.
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
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This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

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Abstract

Megahertz peaked-spectrum (MPS) sources have spectra that peak at frequencies below 1 GHz in the observer's frame and are believed to be radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN). We recently presented a new method to search for high-redshift AGN by identifying unusually compact MPS sources. In this paper, we present European VLBI Network (EVN) observations of 11 MPS sources which we use to determine their sizes and investigate the nature of the sources with ~10 mas resolution. Of the 11 sources, we detect 9 with the EVN. Combining the EVN observations with spectral and redshift information, we show that the detected sources are all AGN with linear sizes smaller than 1.1 kpc and are likely young. This shows that low-frequency colour-colour diagrams are an easy and efficient way of selecting small AGN and explains our high detection fraction (82 per cent) in comparison to comparable surveys. Finally we argue that the detected sources are all likely compact symmetric objects and that none of the sources are blazars.