In a paper which deals with the spectra of radio frequency cosmic events, the word “spectral turnover” is used. What is “spectral turnover”?
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It just means, that when you look at the spectrum on a log-log plot, that it become flat or even reverses slope, in contrast to a steeper power law spectrum at higher and/or lower frequencies.
There are various physical reasons why a turnover might appear in the spectrum (e.g. a flattening in the underlying power-law distribution of electrons producing synchrotron emission or synchrotron self-absorption).
I was quickly able to find the following sketch (from this website) of a "GHz-peaked radio galaxy", which illustrates and explains the situation.
answered Jul 21 at 7:19
