Landing page for project EV026

There is great interest in studying dwarf galaxies ($M < 10^9.5 M_sun) as they may host intermediate-mass black holes, whose predicted existence remains elusive, but which may be detectable as compact radio sources. Furthermore, two repeating fast radio burst (FRB) sources have been localised to dwarf galaxies. Both of these FRB sources are associated with a compact persistent radio source counterpart, possibly a synchrotron nebula. Given their low metallicities, dwarfs can host super-luminous supernovae that may leave behind ultra-luminous plerions. We have searched for such OCRs in the LOFAR Two Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) that is the most sensitive large-area survey for optically thin synchrotron emission. We identified 7 promising OCRs candidates residing in nearby dwarf galaxies, with radio flux is larger than that expected from star formation alone. Here we propose EVN observations to establish the compact nature of these sources which will conclusively rule out star formation as the cause of radio emission. We anticipate the survey to yield existing discoveries of neutron-star driven plerion possibly associated with fast radio bursts and accreting intermediate-mass black holes in the local Universe. The total time request of 35 hours.

This data is part of the archive of VLBI data maintained by JIVE on behalf of the EVN, a network of radio telescopes located primarily in Europe and Asia, with additional antennas in South Africa. The EVN archive itself has the DOI https://doi.org/10.17616/R3Z197