High Frequency Peakers

There is quite a clear anticorrelation between the intrinsic peak frequency and the overall radio source size in Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) and GHz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) radio sources as shown by O'Dea (1998). This feature is interpreted in terms of synchrotron self-absorption (although free-free absorption may play a role as well) of the radiation emitted by a small radio source which is growing within the inner region of the host galaxy. This leads to the hypothesis that these objects are young and that the radio source is still developing/expanding within the host galaxy itself. Very young radio sources must have the peak in their radio spectra occurring above a few tens of GHz, and for this reason they are termed High Frequency Peakers (HFPs). These newly born radio sources must be very rare given that they spend very little time in this stage.