2020A&A...643A.174M

We report the detection of HI 21-cm absorption in a member of the rare and recently discovered class of compact radio sources: extremely inverted spectrum extragalactic radio sources (EISERS). The EISERS conceivably form a special subclass of the inverted spectrum radio galaxies since the spectral index of the optically thick part of the spectrum for these sources crosses the synchrotron self-absorption limit of α=+2.5 (S(ν) ∝ ν^α). We searched for HI absorption in two EISERS using the recently upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) and detected an absorption feature in one of them. The strong associated HI absorption detected against the source J1209-2032 (z=0.4040) implies an optical depth of 0.178±0.02, corresponding to an HI column density of 34.8±2.9x10²⁰cm^–2, for an assumed HI spin temperature of 100K and covering factor of 1. This is among the highest known optical depth and HI column densities found for compact radio sources of peaked spectrum type and supports the free-free absorption model for the steeply inverted radio spectrum of this source. For the other source, J1549+5038 (z=2.171), no HI absorption was detected in our observations.