Dust Emission from High-Redshift QSOs.

We present detections of emission at 250 GHz (1.2 mm) from two high-redshift QSOs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample using the bolometer array at the IRAM 30 m telescope. The sources are SDSSp 015048.83+004126.2 at z=3.7 and SDSSp J033829.31+002156.3 at z=5.0; the latter is the third highest redshift QSO known and the highest redshift millimeter-emitting source yet identified. We also present deep radio continuum imaging of these two sources at 1.4 GHz using the Very Large Array. The combination of centimeter and millimeter observations indicate that the 250 GHz emission is most likely thermal dust emission, with implied dust masses approximately 108 M middle dot in circle. We consider possible dust heating mechanisms, including UV emission from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) and a massive starburst concurrent with the AGN, with implied star formation rates greater than 103 M middle dot in circle yr-1.

The changing morphology and increasing deceleration of supernova 1993J in M81

Twenty consecutive Very Long Baseline Interferometry images of supernova 1993J from the time of explosion to the present show the dynamic evolution of the expanding radio shell of an exploded star. High-precision astrometry reveals that the supernova expands isotropically from its explosion center. Systematic changes in the images may reflect a pattern of anisotropies and inhomogeneities in the material left over from the progenitor star. As the shock front sweeps up the material in the surrounding medium, it is increasingly decelerated and influenced by the material. After 5 years, the supernova has slowed to half of its original expansion velocity and may have entered the early stages of the adiabatic phase common in much older supernova remnants in the Milky Way Galaxy.

The Discovery of a High-Redshift Quasar without Emission Lines from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data.

We report observations of a luminous unresolved object at redshift z=4.62, with a featureless optical spectrum redward of the Lyalpha forest region, discovered from Sloan Digital Sky Survey commissioning data. The redshift is determined by the onset of the Lyalpha forest at lambda approximately 6800 Å and a Lyman limit system at lambda=5120 Å. A strong Lyalpha absorption system with weak metal absorption lines at z=4.58 is also identified in the spectrum. The object has a continuum absolute magnitude of -26.6 at 1450 Å in the rest frame (h0=0.5, q0=0.5) and therefore cannot be an ordinary galaxy. It shows no radio emission (the 3 sigma upper limit of its flux at 6 cm is 60 µJy), indicating a radio-to-optical flux ratio at least as small as that of the radio-weakest BL Lacertae objects known. It is also not linearly polarized to a 3 sigma upper limit of 4% in the observed I band. Therefore, it is either the most distant BL Lac object known to date, with very weak radio emission, or a new type of unbeamed quasar, whose broad emission line region is very weak or absent.