J. Astrophys. Astr. (1997) 18, 393–406
Quasar Creation and Evolution into Galaxies
Halton Arp,
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astrophysik 85740 Garching, Germany
Abstract. Building on evidence starting from 1966, X-ray observations
have once again confirmed the association of quasars with low redshift
galaxies. Enough examples of quasar-like objects ejected in opposite
directions from nearby, active galaxies have accumulated so that an
empirical evolutionary sequence can be outlined.
The quasars start out with low luminosity and high (z > 2) redshift. As
they travel away from their galaxy of origin they grow in size and decay in
redshift. The redshifts drop in steps and near the quantized values of
z = 0.6, 0.3, and 0.06 the quasars become particularly active, ejecting or
breaking up into many objects which evolve finally into groups and
clusters of galaxies. The observations massively violate the assumptions
of the Big Bang and require continuous, episodic creation in a non
expanding universe of indefinitely large size and age.
Key words. Quasars—redshifts—galaxies—evolution.
1. Introduction
In 1966 it was shown that radio sources ejected from disturbed galaxies in the Atlas
of Peculiar Galaxies contained a number of much higher redshift quasars. Later
associations of quasars were found with companion galaxies to larger galaxies. The
companions tended to be more active and contain a larger component of young stars
and the statistical association of quasars with them reached the astonishing level of 16
sigma. (See for review Arp 1987). Fig. 1 shows a pair of radio quasars discovered in
1968 across a disturbed companion where the redshifts later turned out to be, an
improbable by accident, z = 0.62 and 0.67.
2. Ejection of quasars from low redshift galaxies
With the advent of satellite X-ray telescopes quasars became much easier to discover
because they represented the majority of point sources mapped at these high
energies. In addition there was a class of galaxies called Seyferts with nuclei which
showed the same kind of excited, energetic spectra as quasars and which were
also very strong X-ray sources. In the course of observing these Seyfert galaxies,
particularly the German X-ray telescope ROSAT built up an archive of observations which encompassed a field of almost one degree radius around each Seyfert.
Around this rather complete sample of bright Seyferts it was possible to catalogue
an excess of bright X-ray quasar candidates that was visually striking and significant
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Figure 1. The two strongest
galaxy IC1767. The redshifts
insure their physical relation.
class of radio sources ejected
radio sources in the pictured area fall across the disturbed spiral
of these radio quasars at z = 0.62 and 0.67 are so close as to
This pair, published in 1968, established quasars to be in the
in opposite directions from active galaxies.
at the more than 7.4 sigma level (Radecke 1997). Among this sample of 26 Seyferts
more than a dozen had conspicuous pairs of X-ray emitting, blue stellar objects
(BSO’s). Among the 53 BSO’s in these pairs a number were already known to be
quasars and the rest essentially only await the measurement of their redshifts (Arp
1997).
In addition to the statistical proof of physical association there was, of course, the
striking pairing of quasars across the active Seyferts, pairs which were too accurately
aligned and spaced and with such similarity of properties as to preclude their being
accidental projections of background objects. A few examples of such X-ray pairings
are shown here in Figs. 2, 3 and 4.
Already this tells us that the Seyferts as a class, which are known to be ejecting
material, are ejecting these X-ray emitting quasars. Ejection of radio synchrotron
emitting material from active galaxies was already an accepted fact from the 1950s
and, of course, we had examples of radio quasars ejected from disturbed galaxies
from 1966 onward.
3. What do quasars evolve into?
Inspection of just the four examples of pairings given so far reveal a pattern which
can be substantiated by reference to many other cases. The pattern is that when
the quasars are closely spaced across the ejecting galaxy they tend to be fainter
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Figure 2. Very strong (268 and 119 cts/ks) X-ray sources across the Seyfert NGC4235.
Catalogued identifications as a quasar and a BL Lac object are labeled with redshifts
underneath. Plus sign indicates the position of a Seyfert 1 of z = 0.080 identified previously
but not registered in the ROSAT observation.
and of higher redshift. (These central galaxies are all approximately at the same
distance.) In a case like NGC4235 as shown in Fig. 2, however, the ejecta have moved
out to a distance of more than half a degree and have become very bright. The
redshifts have also become less, more like normal galaxies. In Fig. 5 we show a
schematic representation of what I judge, from all the evidence, to be the empirically
suggested evolution of the quasars as they travel outwards.
The BL Lacertid phase of the evolution turns out to be a very important stage. A
BL Lac is defined as a quasar-like object which is very strong in radio, very strong in
X-rays and has a mostly continuous spectrum dominated by synchrotron or bremstrahlung radiation. The similarity between bright radio, X-ray quasars and BL Lac
objects is striking and suggests that the latter can rapidly turn into the former from a
burst of high energy radiation that swamps the normal quasar emission lines with
high energy continuum radiation. That secondary ejection and/or break-up takes
place in this phase can be attested to by the smaller X-ray sources found grouped
around many of these objects (Arp 1997). The BL Lac pictured in Fig. 2 actually has
a pair of BSO candidates across it which await spectrum measurement. BL Lac’s
also are the first of the quasar-like objects to show signs of an underlying stellar
population.
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Figure 3. A pair of strong X-ray sources (38 and 26 cts/ks) across the water maser Seyfert
NGC2639 – the closest in redshift so far found. Further X-ray BSO candidates, fainter and
closer in, are coming NE out of the Seyfert.
Figure 4. X-ray map of the water master Seyfert NGC4258. Quasars at z = 0.65 and 0.40 are
identified. Sources NNW and SSE not yet optically identified.
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Figure 5. A schematic diagram incorporating the empirical data for the low redshift central
galaxies and the higher redshift quasars and companions. It is suggested that the most evolved
companions have relative intrinsic redshifts of only a few hundred km/sec and have fallen
back closer to the parent galaxy.
4. 3C345 – Finally a cluster of quasars
Since extragalactic objects are hierarchically distributed astronomers expected to find
clusters and groups of quasars. When they did not, they characteristically put this
difficulty out of their mind. Actually groups of quasars were found (Arp 1987 p. 64)
but they had a wider spread in redshift than could be conventionally accepted. But
Fig. 6 shows what happens when we look at the archived X-ray fields centered on
3C345, a bright, strongly variable radio quasar that was among the first to be discovered.
The brightest X-ray object is naturally 3C345 with an X-ray intensity of 365
counts/kilosec. But forming a conspicuously well aligned pair across it are the next
two strongest X-ray sources in the field. Both are catalogued quasars of redshift
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Figure 6. The bright, violently variable radio quasar, 3C345, is indicated as having the very
strong X-ray intensity of 365 cts/ks. Counts for other quasars in the field are marked to the
upper right and optical apparent magnitudes directly beneath. The next two brightest X-ray
quasars are shown as filled circles and define a conspicuous pair across 3C345.
similar to 3C345 as shown in Fig. 7. In this respect 3C345 is just like the examples of
paired X-ray quasars shown in the first four figures and referred to in the publications.
But what is exceptional in this case is the fact that 3C345 is part of an 8 sq. deg. field
which had been optically searched for quasars by Crampton et al. (1988). Part of that
uniform search is shown in Fig. 7. It is obvious at a glance that an equal sized
adjoining field is bereft of quasars and that almost all of the 14 quasars pictured
belong to 3C345!
To go back to Fig. 6 for a moment we can point out that the next three, strongest
and closest X-ray quasars, fall closely along the ejection line defined by the brightest
two. This lowers the probability of accidental alignment with 3C345 from 4 in one
hundred thousand to 3 in one hundred million. Obviously they have been ejected
from the central object as its active, Seyfert-like spectrum would suggest.
In Fig. 7 the central radio quasar is labeled HP signifying that it is highly polarized.
In addition to strong radio and X-ray emission this is another characteristic of BL Lac
objects. So it is clear that 3C345 is some kind of transition between a quasar and a BL
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Figure 7. Quasars of redshift 0.5 < z < 1.6 in a homogeneously searched area around
3C345 and an equal area to the west. Redshifts are written to the upper right of each quasar.
3C345 is identified HP (for high polarization) and the Seyfert galaxy is marked S1.
Lac object. The importance of this comment lies in the fact that 3C345, as earlier
concluded about BL Lacs, appears to be in the process of ejecting and breaking up
into smaller entities. In turn this is important because it implies that if this process
continues, over time we will develop an increasingly rich cluster of galaxy like
objects.
5. The origin of galaxy clusters
It is noticeable that three of the quasars NE of 3C345 form a tight group with
redshifts z = 0.59, 0.70 and 1.08. This pattern has appeared a number of times in the
pairs across Seyferts, i.e. one of the X-ray pairs will be double or triple or the X-ray
position will yield two or three BSO quasar candidates (Arp 1997). The preliminary
interpretation, consonant with the break up of BL Lac’s discussed previously, is that
as the outward travelling quasar evolves its subsequent ejections are sometimes
blocked by material in the vicinity and the younger, higher redshift products stay
irregularly placed in the vicinity.
If this is true it helps us to understand the previous observations that the richest
quasar groups found had, at maximum, only about six members and they were all of
redshift about z = 1, plus or minus a few tenths (Arp 1987, p. 64). Here we are
suggesting that they are on their way to evolving into more populous clusters of low
redshift galaxies.
Notice in Figs. 6 and 7 that there is a square box representing the Seyfert galaxy
NGC6212. At only 4.7 arc min distance from 3C345 it would be unlikely to be a
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chance placement and would represent, from all the foregoing evidence, the origin of
3C345. As the subdivision of the quasars continues, and as the redshifts decay with
time, the 3C345 cluster of quasars would then be predicted to turn into a “normal”
cluster of galaxies with NGC6212 becoming one of the larger, older, slightly lower
redshift galaxies near the center (the higher redshifts decay more rapidly with time
than the lower).
6. Quantization of redshifts
Since 1967 when Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge noticed the prevalence of quasars
of redshift z = 1.95, the evidence for preferred values of quasar redshifts has been
growing. In 1971 K. G. Karlsson showed that the observed redshift peaks obeyed the
formula (1 + z) = 1.23n; z = 0.061, 0.30, 0.60, 0.96, 1.41, 1.96 etc. This sequence
was verified by many investigators (see egs. Arp et al. 1990). If we were to interpret
this observational data on the current expanding universe theory we would have to
conclude that the quasars were distributed in shells expanding away from us
symmetrically m every direction. This consequence has been considered so
devastating to the Big Bang that most scientists have consciously chosen to deny
or ignore the observations!
We show here only two previously unpublished examples of the observations of
this redshift periodicity. Ironically the quasars depicted in Fig. 8 were measured in
Figure 8. In searching for nearby blue stars Willem Luyten found 40 objects which later
turned out to be quasars. The distribution of their redshifts shows conspicuously the peaks
predicted by Karlsson formula.
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Figure 9. All catalogued BL Lac objects (Veron and Veron 1995). Bins are +/ – 0.1z (to
allow for observed ejection velocities) and with three major redshift peaks marked.
search for nearby blue dwarf stars by Willem Luyten before quasars had ever been
discover ed. Later when they turned out to be quasars they showed the redshift
periodicity amazingly well although, to my knowledge, this is the first time the plot
has been published.
In another new test, Fig. 9 shows the redshift distribution of all presently
catalogued BL Lac objects. As remarked before, BL Lac’s are an especially active
type of quasar so this is an independent verification of the periodicity. But then this
same periodicity has been verified for radio quasars, X-ray quasars and even field
galaxies and X-ray clusters. It is interesting to note that the bins are naturally about
0.1c wide which is just about the measured ejection velocity for the average quasar. In
other words the quantized redshift values could follow quite accurately the formula
with their spread from those values being due to the plus and minus ejection speeds.
The observations require, however, that the red shifts be intrinsic and quantized in
discrete values – two properties that irreconcilably violate the fundamental assumption about redshift upon which extragalactic astronomy rests.
7. Arp/Hazard groups and triplets
The empirical results on quantization can be used, however, to make sense of some
previously very puzzling observations on groups of quasars. One of these results
came up in 1979 and is shown in Fig. 10. These quasars are called the Arp/Hazard
triplets and show a fairly bright quasar of redshift somewhat greater than z = 0.5 with
much higher redshift quasars aligned exactly across it in each case (Arp & Hazard
1980). Of course, regardless of the explanation, this is unavoidable evidence that
extragalactic objects of much different redshift are physically associated and that
redshifts are not a measure of velocity or distance. As if nature knew that astronomers
were very slow about grasping reality, the configuration is repeated almost exactly,
and placed again immediately next to the the original!
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Figure 10. The Arp/Hazard triplets are pictured with the measured redshifts written to the
right of each quasar. In the box to the right are written the nearest intrinsic redshift peaks and
the velocity components in z which are required to balance the ejections.
But with the developments in the understanding of ejection and quantization of
intrinsic redshift it is now possible to interpret the triplets more satisfactorily. Notice
that the high redshift quasars are within about 0.2z of the strong quantization peak
z = 1.96. The side bar in Fig. 10 shows that if these quasars were ejected toward and
away from the central quasar with delta z’s of this amount that the observed values of
the paired quasars would result (At these z’s a calculation of the ejection velocity
would again yield about 0.1c.) As the sidebar also indicates, a modest velocity of the
whole system would then enable the central quasars to be at the quantized value of
z = 0.60 and the pairs to be ejected symmetrically.
The central quasar in each case is quite bright in apparent magnitude, and one is a
strong radio source. They are quite like the BL Lac’s which have been found now to
eject higher redshift quasars. In this case the ejection appears to be quite recent, the
quasars quite young and the intrinsic redshifts quite high. But then the question
arises, is there a nearby, lower redshift galaxy from which the two, bright ejecting
quasars could have originated? Before we answer that, however, we should consider
another extaordinary group of quasars discovered in the same 6 × 6 degree schmidt
telescope field by Cyril Hazard.
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Figure 11. Redshift of all quasars found in rich group by Arp and Hazard on the same
objective prism plate as the triplets in Fig 10.
Fig. 11 shows Arp/Hazard 1146 + 1112, a group of 6 to 8 quasars which were so
conspicuous that theorists tried to explain them as a gravitational lensing
phenomenon. When that failed because of the unbelievably large mass required the
group was forgotten. But it is the same as a few other groups of quasars known at the
time – some brighter quasars at z = 1 or below and a few fainter, higher redshift
quasars. The question was whether there was any significance to this group’s
occurrence on the same plate as the triplets?
The answer is shown in Fig. 12. In the area of sky plotted there is one Catalogued
Seyfert galaxy and it falls approximately between the two Arp/Hazard groups. But
this is not an ordinary Seyfert galaxy. In an all sky survey of infrared luminous, star
burst galaxies which were also strong X-ray sources, 13 galaxies were found to be
Seyferts which were exceptionally luminous in X-rays (Moran et al. 1994). NGC3822
was found to be one of these exceptional Seyferts and this is the galaxy that falls
between the two extraordinary Arp/Hazard groups in Fig. 12!
Only the lower redshift members of the Arp/Hazard groups have been plotted in
Fig. 12 and it is instructive to compare the configuration with the quasars emanating
from 3C345 in Fig. 7. There is a group of quasars just NE of 3C345 which we
concluded was ejected from the active BL Lac like object and was breaking up into
redshifts of z = 0.59, 0.70 and 1.08. In Fig. 12 it looks like the eastern group is at
intrinsic z = 0.96 with velocity components +/ – 0.1z and a systematic velocity of
about +0.05z. The higher z quasars shown in Fig. 11 are further out with slightly
higher ejection Z’s. The western triplets can be interpreted as being centered on
quasars of intrinsic redshift z = 0.60 with a systematic velocity between –0.75z and
–0.03z.
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Figure 12. The area of the sky in which the very unusual Arp/Hazard group and triplets are
found. Only redshifts less than z = 1.6 are plotted. The central identifies one of the 13
most luminous X-ray Seyferts known over the whole sky. Open circles identify members of the
NGC3869 group (Nilsen 1973; Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies).
Figure 13. The strong X-ray galaxy cluster Abell 85. Individual galaxies are plotted as a
function of their redshift and distance from the cluster center (Durret et al. 1996).
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It is significant to note that the putative Seyfert of origin of the two Arp/Hazard
groups, NGC3822, is in a fairly rich cluster of NGC galaxies. That means that there
are a number of candidates for the origin of the Seyfert. It would be important to
measure the redshifts of the other galaxies in this cluster to see whether the Seyfert
has a higher, or slightly higher redshift than the mean of the cluster. In any case this
seems to be a case of new clusters (the quasar groups) emerging from an old cluster of
galaxies. As time goes on and the redshifts decay and come closer together one might
expect linked strings of clusters across the sky as many galaxy cataloguers have
indeed found.
8. A crucial test
If clusters of quasars evolve into clusters of galaxies the critical test of this hypothesis
would be to see the quantization of the quasar redshifts repeat in the quantization of
the galaxy redshifts! Luckily we have the extensive measures of galaxies in the
cluster Abell 85 shown in Fig. 13. The discretely larger redshifts of the galaxies in
this cluster cannot be attributed to background sheets and filaments of galaxies
because the galaxies are concentrated toward the center of the cluster. A good
comparison can be made to the highest and lowest redshift galaxies which are much
less concentrated to the center of the cluster than the first few higher steps in redshift
which belong to the cluster.
This would certainly be a critical prediction of the hypothesis that groups of
quasars evolve into clusters of galaxies. The higher redshifts evolve to lower, and
necessarily the quantized redshift steps become smaller. With the continuity of
physical properties between quasars and galaxies it would be hard to escape the
conclusion that this is the explanation for the ubiquitous, systematically higher redshifts and their quantized steps found in all tests of companion galaxies and fainter
galaxies in clusters.
It is also impressive to note that the cluster Abell 85 is a very strong X-ray emitter
and at z = 0.055, essentially at the first quantized quasar redshift peak of z = 0.06.
This would conform to the expectation of an X-ray strong group of quasars at the
quantized value of z = 0.30 breaking up and evolving to the next lower step at
z = 0.06.
9. Evolution through resonant states
In the theory which I intend to mention briefly in the Panel Discussion, I will show
how the particle masses of newly created matter need to be near zero. As time passes
they gain mass in a Machian communication with other particle masses within a
horizon expanding with the speed of light. As the electron which transitions orbits
and emits a photon grows in mass, the photon redshift goes from initially very high to
lower values as a quadratic function of time.
Whatever determines the values of the quantized redshifts, if the matter evolves
and gains mass it must pass rapidly between, say redshifts of z = 0.30 and 0.60.
Otherwise we would observe more intrinsic redshifts between these values. So I
would call these preferred redshifts “resonant values”. Regardless of what one calls
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them, however, the important practical aspect is that particle masses in one state have
to pass relatively rapidly to a state of higher masses. That must inject a rapid step up
in energy, and would be a natural explanation for why BL Lacs, for example, rapidly
flare up in bursts of very luminous radio, X-ray and continuum emissions. It would
also suggest a reason why the BL Lacs and quasars near these redshifts eject and
break up into smaller parts.
10. Epilogue
No matter how interesting the possible theoretical explanations for the observations
may be, it is clear that the nature of the redshift is the crucial issue. Since science by
operational definition is observational, the many observations which invalidate the
assumption that extragalactic redshifts are principally caused by recession velocities
must be faced. The consequences of this basic step are enormous, requiring
astronomers to admit that the theory of the last 75 years has been built on a false
assumption. The alternative of trying to cover up and ignore the evidence, however, is
even more horrendous.
11. Discussion
Q. Are any “ejected” objects double radio sources?
A. Some are radio sources. I have not studied their morphology in detail.
Q. Does any of your radio-loud “ejected” objects show a radio trail pointing towards
the “parent” galaxy?
A. I don’t know about radio tails but there are some X-ray tails and even more cases
of “lines” of X-ray sources pointing back to the ejecting galaxy.
References
Arp, H. 1987, Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies, Interstellar Media.
Arp, H. et al. 1990, Astron. Astrophys., 239, 33.
Arp, H. 1997, Astron. Astrophys., 319, 33.
Arp, H., Hazard, C. 1980, Astrophys. J., 240, 726.
Crampton, D., Cowley, A. P., Schmidtke, A. P. et al. 1988, Astr. J., 96, 816.
Durret, F., Fellenbok, P., Gerbal, D. et al. 1996, ESO Messenger, 84, 20.
Moran, E. C., Halpern, J. P., Helfand, D. J. 1994, Astrophys. J., 433, L65.
Radecke, H.-D. 1997, Astr. Astrophys., 319, 18.