The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey: VII. Third Data Release T. W. Shimwell, M. J. Hardcastle, C. Tasse, A. Drabent, A. Botteon, W. L. Williams, P. N. Best, H. J. A. Röttgering, M. Brüggen, G. Brunetti, J. R. Callingham, K. T. Chyży, J. E. Conway, F. De Gasperin, M. Haverkorn, C. Horellou, N. Jackson, G. K. Miley, L. K. Morabito, R. Morganti, S. P. O’Sullivan, D. J. Schwarz, D. J. B. Smith, R. J. van Weeren, H. K. Vedantham, G. J. White, A. Ahmadi, L. Alegre, M. Arias, B. Asabere, B. Bahr-Kalus, B. Barkus, M. Bilicki, L. Böhme, M. Brentjens, M. Brienza, D. J. Bomans, A. Bonafede, M. Bonato, E. Bonnassieux, J. M. Boxelaar, S. Camera, R. Cassano, J. Chilufya, M. Cianfaglione, J. H. Croston, V. Cuciti, P. Dabhade, E. De Rubeis, J. M. G. H. J. de Jong, D. Dallacasa, R. J. Dettmar, K. J. Duncan, G. Di Gennaro, H. W. Edler, C. Groeneveld, G. Gürkan, M. Hajduk, C. L. Hale, V. Heesen, D. N. Hoang, M. Hoeft, H. Holties, M. A. Horton, M. Iacobelli, M. Jamrozy, M. J. Jarvis, V. Jelic, M. Kadler, R. Kondapally, M. Kunert-Bajraszewska, M. Loose, M. Magliocchetti, K. Małek, C. Manzano, J. P. McKean, M. Mevius, B. Mingo, A. Miskolczi, A. Misra, J. Moldón, D. G. Nair, S. J. Nakoneczny, E. Orru, M. Pashapour-Ahmadabadi, T. Pasini, J. Petley, J. C. S. Pierce, I. Prandoni, D. Rafferty, K. Rajpurohit, C. J. Riseley, I. D. Roberts, S. Sethi, A. Shulevski, M. Stein, C. Stuardi, F. Sweijen, S. ter Veen, R. Timmerman, M. Vaccari, S. Wijnholds Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2026 We present the third data release of the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS-DR3). The survey images cover 88% of the northern sky and were created from 12 950 h of data (18.6 PB) accumulated over 10.5 years. Producing the images took 20 million core hours of processing through direction-independent and direction-dependent calibration pipelines that correct for instrumental effects as well as spatially and temporally varying ionospheric distortions. In our 120–168 MHz continuum mosaic images with an angular resolution of 6″ (9″ below declination 10°) we catalogue 13 667 877 sources, formed from 16 943 656 Gaussian components. The scatter in the astrometric precision approximately follows the expected noise-like behaviour but with an additional systematic component of at least 0.24″ that is likely due to calibration imperfections. The random flux density scale error is 6%, while the systematic offset was previously shown to be within 2%. The median sensitivity of our mosaics is 92 μJy beam −1 , improving to 68 μJy beam −1 at high observing elevations, but degrading to 183 μJy beam −1 at the celestial equator due to station area projection effects. Completeness simulations, accounting for realistic source models, time- and bandwidth-smearing effects, and astrometric errors, indicate that we detect more than 95% of compact sources with integrated flux densities exceeding 9 times the local root mean square (RMS) noise. However, the recovered source counts in a particular integrated flux density bin do not match the injected counts until flux densities exceed 45 times the local RMS noise. The Euclidean-normalised differential source counts derived from the survey constrain the radio source population over five orders of magnitude and are in good agreement with previous deep and wide-area surveys. All data products are publicly available, including catalogues, individual-field Stokes I , Q , U , and V images, mosaicked Stokes I images, and uv data with associated direction-dependent calibration solutions.
Serendipitous discovery of a spiral host in a 2 Mpc double-double lobed radio galaxy Sagar Sethi, Agnieszka Kuźmicz, Dominika Hunik, Marek Jamrozy Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2025 We present the serendipitous discovery of a double-double radio galaxy (DDRG) with a projected linear size exceeding 2 Mpc, hosted by a spiral galaxy. This unique combination of a giant radio structure and a spiral host challenges the prevailing view that such extreme radio sources reside only in elliptical galaxies. Using high-resolution optical imaging from the DESI Legacy Imaging Survey (DR10), we confirm a spiral-arm feature and a disc component in the surface brightness profile fitting for the host galaxy (LEDA 896325) that has a black hole of mass 2.4 × 108 M⊙. Radio observations from RACS and GLEAM reveal two distinct pairs of radio lobes. Using the multi-frequency analysis of radio data, we obtained the spectral index distribution and estimate the spectral ages of the outer and inner radio lobes to be approximately 120 and 35 Myr, respectively. Our results confirm recurrent jet activity in this disc galaxy and establish it as the largest known radio galaxy in a spiral host, and its double-double structure makes it the largest of only three such spiral-host DDRGs, demonstrating that disc galaxies can indeed launch extremely large-scale radio jets.
Study of giant radio galaxies using spectroscopic observations from the Himalayan Chandra Telescope S. Sethi, P. Dabhade, K. G. Biju, C. S. Stalin, M. Jamrozy Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2025 We present the results of spectroscopic observations of host galaxies of eleven candidate giant radio galaxies (GRGs), powered by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), conducted with the 2-m Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT). The primary aim of these observations, performed with the Hanle Faint Object Spectrograph Camera (HFOSC), was to secure accurate spectroscopic redshifts, enabling precise calculations of their projected linear sizes. Based on these measurements, we confirm all eleven sources as giants, with linear sizes ranging from 0.7 to 2.9 Mpc, including ten GRGs and one giant radio quasar (GRQ). One of the GRGs shows evidence of a potential AGN jet-driven ionised outflow, extending up to ∼12 kpc, which, if confirmed, would represent a rarely observed feature. Two of the confirmed GRGs exceed 2 Mpc in size, which are relatively rare examples of GRGs. The redshifts of the host galaxies span 0.09323 ≤ z ≤ 0.41134. Using the obtained spectroscopic data, we characterised their AGN states based on the optical emission line properties. To complement these observations, archival radio and optical survey data were utilised to characterise their large-scale radio morphology and estimate projected linear sizes, arm-length ratios, flux densities, luminosities, and core dominance factors. These results provide new insights into the properties of GRGs and form a critical foundation for further detailed studies of their environments, AGN activity, and evolution using future high-sensitivity optical and radio datasets.
Ten Years of Searching for Relics of AGN Jet Feedback Through RAD@home Citizen Science Ananda Hota, Pratik Dabhade, Prasun Machado, Avinash Kumar, Ck. Avinash, Ninisha Manaswini, Joydeep Das, Sagar Sethi, Sumanta Sahoo, Shilpa Dubal, Sai Arun Dharmik Bhoga, P. K. Navaneeth, Chiranjib Konar, Sabyasachi Pal, Sravani Vaddi, Prakash Apoorva, Megha Rajoria, Arundhati Purohit Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, 2025
Discovery of a 100 kpc Narrow Curved Twin Jet in the S-shaped Giant Radio Galaxy J0644+1043 Sagar Sethi, Agnieszka Kuźmicz, Marek Jamrozy, Lyuba Slavcheva-Mihova Astrophysical Journal, 2024 We report the discovery of an S-shaped morphology of the radio galaxy J0644+1043 imaged with a 30 μJy beam−1 sensitive 525 MHz broadband (bands 3 + 4) uGMRT map. Dedicated spectroscopic observations of the host galaxy carried out with the 2 m Rozhen telescope yielded a redshift of 0.0488, giving a projected linear size of the peculiar radio structure of over 0.7 Mpc. This giant radio galaxy is powered by a black hole of mass 4.1 − 2.87 + 9.39 × 10 8 M ⊙, from the vicinity of which emanate well-collimated and knotty jets, each ∼100 kpc long. The entire radio structure, presumably due to the effective jet precession, is less than 50 Myr old, has a power of ∼6 × 1024 W Hz−1 at 1.4 GHz, and has observed morphological characteristics that do not strictly conform to the traditional Fanaroff–Riley (FR) FR I or FR II categories.
Giant Radio Quasars: Composite Optical Spectra Agnieszka Kuźmicz, Sagar Sethi, Marek Jamrozy Astrophysical Journal, 2021 We present the composite optical spectrum for the largest sample of giant radio quasars (GRQs). They represent a rare subclass of radio quasars due to their large projected linear sizes of radio structures, which exceed 0.7 Mpc. To construct the composite spectrum, we combined the optical spectra of 216 GRQs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). As a result, we obtained the composite spectrum covering the wavelength range from 1400 Å to 7000 Å. We calculated the power-law spectral slope for the GRQ’s composite, obtaining α λ = −1.25, and compared it with that of the smaller-sized radio quasars, as well as with the quasar composite spectrum obtained for a large sample of SDSS quasars. We obtained that the GRQ’s continuum is flatter (redder) than the continuum of comparison quasar samples. We also show that the continuum slope depends on core and total radio luminosity at 1.4 GHz, being steeper for higher radio luminosity bins. Moreover, we found that there is a flattening of the continuum with the increase in the projected linear size of the radio quasar. We show that α λ is orientation-dependent, being steeper for a higher radio core-to-lobe flux density ratio, which is consistent with AGN unified model predictions. For two GRQs, we fit the spectral energy distribution using the X-CIGALE code to compare the consistency of results obtained in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum with broadband emission. The parameters obtained from the SED fitting confirmed the larger dust luminosity for the redder optical continuum.
