# Morphology and Dynamics of High Z Radio Galaxies and Quasars 1footnote 11footnote 1To appear in “After the Dark Ages: When Galaxies Were Young”, Ninth Annual October Astrophysics Conference, ed. S.S. Holt & E.P. Smith, American Institute of Physics Press, 1998

## Physical Model of the Alignment Effect

High redshift radio galaxies have peculiar spatially extended optical and infrared morphologies that are generally aligned along the axis of their powerful radio sources cham87 ; mcca87 . This phenomena is called the “alignment effect” cham90a . Dozens of distinct mechanisms for this phenomena have been proposed in the literature, but there has been no general consensus on the nature of the emission mechanisms. Among the various proposals for an optical alignment effect is the idea that the surrounding medium scatters a narrow anisotropic beam of light (e.g. a blazar) from an AGN and this beam appears as a visible pencil of light, like a searchlight beam scattered by fog tadh89 ; fosb89 ; fabi89 ; dise89 . Tadhunter et al. tadh89  argued that if the scattering medium had an optical depth $`\tau 0.1`$, then the scattered intensity would be consistent with the brightest known blazars. This idea is inextricably mixed with proposals for the unification of radio sources bart89 . In the unified scheme, radio galaxies are the unbeamed parent population of QSRs: a radio galaxy observed within 45 of the axis would have the appearance of a QSR.

Optical polarization has been detected in a number of HZRGs dise89 ; scar90 ; janu91 . Spectropolarimetry has found specific QSR features in the polarized component of the spectra of HZRGs cima96 ; dey96 ; dise96 . Furthermore, broad band optical and infrared polarimetry show the polarization properties are consistent with the characteristics of scattering by silicate-graphite dust grains rather than electron scattering knop97 . The discovery of polarization in HZRGS in the infrared knop96b  is crucial because it shows that the light redward of the 4000 Å break can be dominated by dust scattering. This is an important step forward in understanding the infrared alignments seen in HZRGs cham88 ; eise89 ; cham96b .

Manzini & di Serego Alighieri mdsa96  proposed a specific model for dust scattering in high redshift radio galaxies where a diffuse spherical halo of dust was illuminated by a 45 degree bi-conical beam of quasar light, rather than a narrow blazar beam. Either model has a fundamental problem if the scattering medium is dust. They assume a unified scenario where radio galaxies are the parent population of the radio quasars, but if this assumption is true, these models would predict the radio quasars would be reddened when observed near the axis. This is not observed.

A solution to the problem can be found if the dust is distributed in an expanding bipolar shell of dust with an evacuated interior cham99 . If the outward opening shell is illuminated by the active nucleus, then we can recover a self-consistent unification scheme. Although this is an oversimplification, I postulate that the morphologies and polarization properties are due to giant bi-polar dust nebulae cham96 . For the high redshift radio galaxies, this hypothesis can account for an extraordinarily wide range of phenomena including: the alignment effect, the various features of quasar nebulosity, the presence of quasar spectral features in the spectropolarimetry of of high redshift radio galaxies, and the unification of quasars and radio galaxies without requiring reddening of quasars observed on axis.

In order to investigate this proposal further, I have modeled the morphology and dynamics of expanding bipolar dust shells illuminated from a central source cham99 . By assuming an analytical form for an axisymmetric density distribution $`\rho =Q(\theta )r^2`$, and bipolar wind force $`P(\theta )`$, the shape of a swept-up shell can be determined by quadrature cham90b ; cham99 . If $`P(\theta )`$ and $`Q(\theta )`$ and the orientation $`i`$ are chosen such that the resulting shell matches the observed morphology, then the model predicts the dynamics of the shell. The predicted velocity field can be compared with long slit spectroscopy.

An example of this kind of model is shown in Figure 1. The model has an inclination of 20 degrees from the plane of the sky and dust with a Henyey-Greenstein phase function. The functions $`P(\theta )`$ and $`Q(\theta )`$ were chosen to fit the morphology of the high redshift radio galaxy 3C265 long94 . The model spectrum has four components, two from the isotropic insitu photoionized emission line gas from the front and back surfaces of the shell, and two from the nuclear line emission scattered by dust grains swept up in the expanding shells. The model gives a remarkably good fit to the complex data set tadh91 .

This model is the first physically self-consistent explanation of both the morphology and dynamics of high redshift radio galaxies cham99 . Any alternative model for the complex emission line spectrum, e.g. entrainment in the jet, triggered star formation, or mergers, would be unlikely to reproduce these features seen in the velocity field data without introducing excessively ad-hoc components. Alternative scattering mechanisms for the polarization such as electron scattering or inverse Compton are similarly excluded. A prediction of the model is that the two scattered emission line components will be partially polarized, whereas the two isotropic emission line components will not be polarized. Furthermore the scattered components should contain the high ionization lines of the broad line region. The continuum emission should show the same partial polarization as the scattered components (which will not be the same as the total line emission since some fraction is insitu and some fraction is isotropic). 

## Implications for Galaxy Formation

The strong evolutionary “turn on” of the alignment effect at $`z1`$ together with the ubiquity of the phenomena up to at least $`z5`$ has not been addressed in standard cosmogonies. This aspect of the alignment effect is particularly noteworthy given the success of the dynamical model discussed above. The model is largely dependent on the assumption of dust distributed through out a very large halo with an ambient density distribution roughly proportional to $`1/r^2`$. This implies a large, nearly viralized halo diffused with dust from a previous star formation episode. In particular, the halo cannot be very “lumpy” as one would expect from the merging of subgalactic units, or the dynamics and morphologies would be far more disorganized than they are. The presence of aligned structures out to redshifts $`z>4`$ indicates that large halos were well organized at the time of the first major epoch of starformation cham99 .