No Arabic abstract
I present a generalized power-law diagnostic that allows to identify the presence of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in infrared (IR) galaxies at z>1, down to flux densities at which the extragalactic IR background is mostly resolved. I derive this diagnostic from the analysis of 174 galaxies with Snu(24)>80 microJy and spectroscopic redshifts zspec>1 in the Chandra Deep Field South, for which I study the rest-frame UV/optical/near-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs), after subtracting a hot-dust, power-law component with three possible spectral indices alpha=1.3, 2.0 and 3.0. I obtain that 35% of these 24micron sources are power-law composite galaxies (PLCGs), which I define as those galaxies for which the SED fitting with stellar templates, without any previous power-law subtraction, can be rejected with >2sigma confidence. Subtracting the power-law component from the PLCG SEDs produces stellar-mass correction factors <1.5 in >80% of cases. The PLCG incidence is especially high (47%) at z=1.0-1.5. To unveil which PLCGs host AGN, I conduct a combined analysis of 4Ms X-ray data, galaxy morphologies, and a greybody modelling of the hot dust. I find that: 1) 77% of all the X-ray AGN in my 24micron sample at z=1.0-1.5 are recognised by the PLCG criterion; 2) PLCGs with alpha=1.3 or 2.0 have regular morphologies and T_dust >~1000 K, indicating nuclear activity. Instead, PLCGs with alpha=3.0 are characterised by disturbed galaxy dynamics, and a hot interstellar medium can explain their dust temperatures T_dust ~700-800 K. Overall, my results indicate that the fraction of AGN among 24 micron sources is between ~30% and 52% at z=1.0-1.5.
We analyze the multi-wavelength photometric and spectroscopic data of 12 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) at z ~ 1 and compare them with models of stars and dust in order to study the extinction law and star formation in young infrared (IR) galaxies. Five extinction curves, namely, the Milky Way (MW), the pseudo MW which is MW-like without the 2175 Angstrom feature, the Calzetti, and two SN dust curves, are applied to the data, by combining with various dust distributions, namely, the uniform dust screen, the clumpy dust screen, the internal dust geometry, and the composite geometry with a combination of dust screen and internal dust. Employing a minimum chi square method, we find that the foreground dust screen geometry, especially combined with the 8 - 40 M_sun SN extinction curve, provides a good approximation to the real dust geometry, whereas internal dust is only significant in 2 galaxies. The SN extinction curves, which are flatter than the others, reproduce the data of 8(67%) galaxies better. Dust masses are estimated to be in excess of ~ 10^8 M_sun. Inferred ages of the galaxies are very young, 8 of which range from 10 to 650 Myr. The SN-origin dust is the most plausible to account for the vast amount of dust masses and the flat slope of the observed extinction law. The inferred dust mass per SN ranges from 0.01 to 0.4 M_sun/SN.
We apply the supernova(SN) extinction curves to reproduce the observed properties of SST J1604+4304 which is a young infrared (IR) galaxy at z = 1. The SN extinction curves used in this work were obtained from models of unmixed ejecta of type II supernovae(SNe II) for the Salpeter initial mass function (IMF) with a mass range from 8 to 30 M_sun or 8 to 40 M_sun. The effect of dust distributions on the attenuation of starlight is investigated by performing the chi-square fitting method against various dust distributions. These are the commonly used uniform dust screen, the clumpy dust screen, and the internal dust geometry. We add to these geometries three scattering properties, namely, no-scattering, isotropic scattering, and forward-only scattering. Judging from the chi-square values, we find that the uniform screen models with any scattering property provide good approximations to the real dust geometry. Internal dust is inefficient to attenuate starlight and thus cannot be the dominant source of the extinction. We show that the SN extinction curves reproduce the data of SST J1604+4304 comparable to or better than the Calzetti extinction curve. The Milky Way extinction curve is not in satisfactory agreement with the data unless several dusty clumps are in the line of sight. This trend may be explained by the abundance of SN-origin dust in these galaxies; SN dust is the most abundant in the young IR galaxy at z = 1, abundant in local starbursts, and less abundant in the Galaxy. If dust in SST J1604+4304 is dominated by SN dust, the dust production rate is about 0.1 M_sun per SN.
We review recent evidence for a clear association between accretion onto supermassive black holes and star formation up to z~1 in the zCOSMOS survey. Star formation rates (SFRs) are determined from the [OII] emission-line strength and a correction for the AGN contribution. We find that SFRs of X-ray selected AGN span a distribution of 1-100 solar masses per year and evolve in a manner that is indistinguishable from that of massive, star-forming galaxies. The close relationship between AGN activity and star formation is further supported by an increase in the AGN fraction with bluer rest-frame colors (U-V); we further illustrate how the location of AGNs in a color-magnitude diagram can be misleading in luminosity-limited samples due to the dependence of AGN activity on the stellar mass and the low mass-to-light ratios of blue cloud galaxies. To conclude, our results support a co-evolutionary scenario up to z~1 based on the constancy with redshift of the ratio between mass accretion rate and SFR.
We report the detection of luminous CO(2-1), CO(3-2), and CO(4-3) emission in the strongly lensed high-redshift quasars B1938+666 (z=2.059), HE0230-2130 (z=2.166), HE1104-1805 (z=2.322), and B1359+154 (z=3.240), using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). B1938+666 was identified in a `blind CO redshift search, demonstrating the feasibility of such investigations with millimeter interferometers. These galaxies are lensing-amplified by factors of mu_L~11-170, and thus allow us to probe molecular gas in intrinsically fainter galaxies than currently possible without the aid of gravitational lensing. We report lensing-corrected intrinsic CO line luminosities of L(CO) = 0.65-21 x 10^9 K km/s pc^2, translating to H2 masses of M(H2) = 0.52-17 x 10^9 (alpha_CO/0.8) M_sun. To investigate whether or not the AGN in luminous quasars substantially contribute to L_FIR, we study the L(CO)-L_FIR relation for quasars relative to galaxies without a luminous AGN as a function of redshift. We find no substantial differences between submillimeter galaxies and high-z quasars, but marginal evidence for an excess in L_FIR in nearby low-L_FIR AGN galaxies. This may suggest that an AGN contribution to L_FIR is significant in systems with relatively low gas and dust content, but only minor in the most far-infrared-luminous galaxies (in which L_FIR is dominated by star formation).
We present a sample of accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in dwarf galaxies at $z<1$. We identify dwarf galaxies in the NEWFIRM Medium Band Survey with stellar masses $M_{star}<3times 10^{9} M_{odot}$ that have spectroscopic redshifts from the DEEP2 survey and lie within the region covered by deep (flux limit of $sim 5times 10^{-17} - 6times 10^{-16} rm{erg cm}^{-2} rm{s}^{-1}$) archival Chandra X-ray data. From our sample of $605$ dwarf galaxies, $10$ exhibit X-ray emission consistent with that arising from AGN activity. If black hole mass scales roughly with stellar mass, then we expect that these AGN are powered by SMBHs with masses of $sim 10^5-10^6 M_{odot}$ and typical Eddington ratios $sim 5%$. Furthermore, we find an AGN fraction consistent with extrapolations of other searches of $sim 0.6-3%$ for $10^9 M_{odot} leq M_{star} leq 3times 10^{9} M_{odot}$ and $0.1<z<0.6$. Our AGN fraction is in good agreement with a semi-analytic model, suggesting that as we search larger volumes we may use comparisons between observed AGN fractions and models to understand seeding mechanisms in the early universe.