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Accretion and Jet Coupling in Powerful Radio Quasars at Cosmic Noon

Mojegan Azadi, Belinda Wilkes, Joanna Kuraszkiewicz, Steven. P. Willner, Matthew L. N. Ashby

TL;DR

The paper develops physically based bolometric corrections for powerful radio-loud quasars by integrating intrinsic accretion-disk/corona SEDs from $1\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ to $10\,\mathrm{keV}$ and averaging over inclination to account for anisotropy, using ARXSED to self-consistently bridge the UV–X-ray gap. An extensive 3CRR quasar sample at $1<z<2$ with multiwavelength data yields BCs spanning $\sim 1$–$400$, with little dependence on $z$, $L_{ m X}$, or $M_{ m BH}$, but a strong dependence on the Eddington ratio in the X-ray band. The results show that radio power is typically 1–10% of the accretion-disk power, with compact jets achieving higher efficiencies, suggesting evolving jet-disk coupling. These bolometric corrections are applicable to powerful radio-loud AGN across cosmic epochs and provide a physically grounded tool for SMBH growth studies and AGN energy budgets.

Abstract

We present bolometric corrections, as a function of wavelength, for powerful radio-loud quasars from the Revised Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Galaxies (3CRR) at 1 < z < 2. The bolometric luminosities are derived by integrating the intrinsic accretion disk spectral energy distributions (SEDs) over the range 1μm-10keV (excluding reprocessed infrared emission) and integrating over inclination angles (to account for accretion disk emission anisotropy). We use accretion disk models, fitted to observed data, to self-consistently bridge the unobserved wavelength region between the UV and X-rays with no need for far-UV gap repair. The resulting bolometric corrections span a wide range (~1-400) across different wavelengths, showing minimal dependence on redshift, X-ray luminosity, and black hole mass, which is possibly due to a narrow range of these intrinsic AGN parameters in the sample. However, when the sample is divided by Eddington ratio, the X-ray bolometric corrections exhibit distinctly different values, with higher correction factors corresponding to higher Eddington ratios. We also examine the connection between total radio luminosity and accretion disk power. For most 3CRR sources, the radio power constitutes roughly 1%-10% of the accretion disk luminosity. However, quasars with compact jets exhibit higher radio luminosities for a given accretion disk power. This suggests a higher efficiency of conversion of accretion power to radio luminosity in the younger jets. Our results provide physically motivated bolometric corrections for powerful radio quasars that are applicable to powerful radio-loud quasars at any epoch.

Accretion and Jet Coupling in Powerful Radio Quasars at Cosmic Noon

TL;DR

The paper develops physically based bolometric corrections for powerful radio-loud quasars by integrating intrinsic accretion-disk/corona SEDs from to and averaging over inclination to account for anisotropy, using ARXSED to self-consistently bridge the UV–X-ray gap. An extensive 3CRR quasar sample at with multiwavelength data yields BCs spanning –, with little dependence on , , or , but a strong dependence on the Eddington ratio in the X-ray band. The results show that radio power is typically 1–10% of the accretion-disk power, with compact jets achieving higher efficiencies, suggesting evolving jet-disk coupling. These bolometric corrections are applicable to powerful radio-loud AGN across cosmic epochs and provide a physically grounded tool for SMBH growth studies and AGN energy budgets.

Abstract

We present bolometric corrections, as a function of wavelength, for powerful radio-loud quasars from the Revised Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Galaxies (3CRR) at 1 < z < 2. The bolometric luminosities are derived by integrating the intrinsic accretion disk spectral energy distributions (SEDs) over the range 1μm-10keV (excluding reprocessed infrared emission) and integrating over inclination angles (to account for accretion disk emission anisotropy). We use accretion disk models, fitted to observed data, to self-consistently bridge the unobserved wavelength region between the UV and X-rays with no need for far-UV gap repair. The resulting bolometric corrections span a wide range (~1-400) across different wavelengths, showing minimal dependence on redshift, X-ray luminosity, and black hole mass, which is possibly due to a narrow range of these intrinsic AGN parameters in the sample. However, when the sample is divided by Eddington ratio, the X-ray bolometric corrections exhibit distinctly different values, with higher correction factors corresponding to higher Eddington ratios. We also examine the connection between total radio luminosity and accretion disk power. For most 3CRR sources, the radio power constitutes roughly 1%-10% of the accretion disk luminosity. However, quasars with compact jets exhibit higher radio luminosities for a given accretion disk power. This suggests a higher efficiency of conversion of accretion power to radio luminosity in the younger jets. Our results provide physically motivated bolometric corrections for powerful radio quasars that are applicable to powerful radio-loud quasars at any epoch.
Paper Structure (8 sections, 1 equation, 4 figures, 3 tables)

This paper contains 8 sections, 1 equation, 4 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Sample and Data
  3. ARXSED Model
  4. Estimating Bolometric Luminosity of 3CRR Quasars
  5. Bolometric Correction Dependence on Quasars' Properties
  6. Advantages and Limitations of Determining the Bolometric Correction from Accretion Disk Modeling
  7. The Integrated Power at Radio Frequencies
  8. Summary

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: The intrinsic SED of 3C 9 from Azadi2020. Grey boxes show the photometry, with black plus signs indicating the observed photometric points prior to extinction correction. Colored lines trace the emission components of the best-fit ARXSED model. AGN components include the accretion disk (green), torus (red), and radio emission (light blue). The radio component (light blue) encompasses the lobes, and the dotted extension shows the synchrotron cutoff due to aging electron populations. The host galaxy contribution is shown in magenta.
  • Figure 2: Bolometric correction factor as a function of frequency for the 20 3CRR radio-loud quasars at $z\sim1$Azadi2020. The solid curve represents the median bolometric correction. The dark purple shading indicates the interquartile (25th–75th percentile) range, while the light purple region shows the full range of values across the sample. Correction factors are derived from the best-fit accretion disk models of Azadi2020, using the integral defined in Equation \ref{['eq:bc_3crr']}.
  • Figure 3: Bolometric correction factor as a function of frequency for the 3CRR quasars at $1<z\lesssim2$ . Each panel shows the sample divided into two bins based on the average value of a given parameter: redshift, X-ray luminosity, SMBH mass, and Eddington ratio. The intrinsic X-ray luminosities are adopted from Wilkes2013, while the SMBH masses and Eddington ratios are derived from the ARXSED fits Azadi2020.
  • Figure 4: The integrated radio luminosity is plotted against the integrated accretion disk luminosity for quasars hosting young/compact (light purple), intermediate (medium purple), and mature/extended (dark purple) jets. The dotted lines indicate different ratios between the integrated radio and accretion disk luminosities, ranging from 1% to 100%. The SED of the two extreme cases—3C 204 (lowest integrated radio luminosity) and 3C 287 (highest integrated radio luminosity)—are shown in Figure \ref{['fig:extreme']}.