Swift observations of unidentified radio sources in the revised Third Cambridge Catalogue

TL;DR

This study used Swift observations and infrared data to identify and analyze unassociated radio sources in the 3CR catalogue, revealing their obscured nature and potential counterparts.

Contribution

It provides new multi-wavelength identifications for previously unassociated 3CR sources using Swift X-ray/UV and WISE infrared data.

Findings

Detected soft X-ray emission in nine sources

Identified infrared counterparts for eight sources

Confirmed heavy obscuration in all sources

Abstract

We have investigated a group of unassociated radio sources included in the 3CR cat- alogue to increase the multi-frequency information on them and possibly obtain an identification. We have carried out an observational campaign with the Swift satellite to observe with the UVOT and the XRT telescopes the field of view of 21 bright NVSS sources within the positional uncertainty region of the 3CR sources. Furthermore, we have searched in the recent AllWISE Source Catalogue for infrared sources matching the position of these NVSS sources. We have detected significant emission in the soft X-ray band for nine of the investigated NVSS sources. To all of them, and in four cases with no soft X-ray association, we have associated a WISE infrared counterpart. Eight of these infrared candidates have not been proposed earlier in the literature. In the five remaining cases our candidate matches one among a few optical candidates suggested for the same 3CR source in previous studies. No source has been detected in the UVOT filters at the position of the NVSS objects, confirming the scenario that all of them are heavily obscured. With this in mind, a spectroscopic campaign, preferably in the infrared band, will be necessary to establish the nature of the sources that we have finally identified.