Name of the Speaker(s): Susan Wright
Institution: University of Southampton, UK
Title of the communication:
Host Galaxies of Optically Violently Variable Quasars
Preliminary abstract:
Unified schemes for radio-loud active galaxies suggest that the different observed classes arise from one basic phenomenon, with the orientation of the line of sight with respect to a relativistic jet determining the type of object seen. In this scheme, optically violently variable (OVV) quasars would be those systems seen end-on (ie down the jet), while those seen edge-on would be Fanaroff-Riley type II (FRII) radio galaxies. If OVVs and FRIIs are intrinsically the same and just viewed from different angles then we would expect their host galaxies to be similar. We have obtained deep optical and near-infrared images of a number of OVV quasars to study the morphology of their host galaxies in order to test the proposed unified schemes. Modelling of our data suggests that the host galaxies of OVVs and FRIIs are indeed similar, consistent with unification.