No Arabic abstract
We investigate of the properties of $sim$2000 Herschel/SPIRE-selected galaxies from $0<z<4$ using a combination of extensive spectroscopy, deep imaging from CFHT, VLA, Spitzer, XMM-Newton, and Herschel, and well-calibrated SED fitting. Herschel galaxies are observed to span a range of stellar masses, colors, and absolute magnitudes equivalent to galaxies undetected in SPIRE. Though many Herschel galaxies appear to be in transition, such galaxies are largely consistent with normal star-forming galaxies when rest-frame colors are utilized. The nature of the star-forming main sequence is studied and we warn against adopting this framework unless the main sequence is determined precisely. Herschel galaxies at different total infrared luminosities ($L_{TIR}$) are compared. Bluer colors, larger nebular extinctions, and larger contributions from younger stellar populations are observed for galaxies with larger $L_{TIR}$, suggesting that low-$L_{TIR}$ galaxies are undergoing rejuvenated starbursts while galaxies with higher $L_{TIR}$ are forming a larger percentage of their stellar mass. A variety of methods are used to select powerful active galactic nuclei (AGN). Galaxies hosting AGN are observed to be undergoing starbursts more commonly and vigorously than a matched sample of galaxies without powerful AGN and, additionally, the fraction of galaxies with an AGN increases with increasing star formation rate at all redshifts. At all redshifts ($0<z<4$) the most prodigious star-forming galaxies are found to contain the highest fraction of powerful AGN. For redshift bins that allow a comparison ($z>0.5$), the highest $L_{TIR}$ galaxies in a given redshift bin are unobserved by SPIRE at subsequently lower redshifts, a trend linked to downsizing. In conjunction with other results, this evidence is used to argue for prevalent AGN-driven quenching in starburst galaxies across cosmic time.
Energetic feedback from supernovae (SNe) and from active galactic nuclei (AGN) are both important processes that are thought to control how much gas is able to condense into galaxies and form stars. We show that although both AGN and SNe suppress star formation, they mutually weaken one anothers effect by up to an order of magnitude in haloes in the mass range for which both feedback processes are efficient (10^11.25 M_sun < m_200 < 10^12.5 M_sun). These results demonstrate the importance of the simultaneous, non-independent inclusion of these two processes in models of galaxy formation to estimate the total feedback strength. These results are of particular relevance to semi-analytic models, which implicitly assume the effects of the two feedback processes to be independent, and also to hydrodynamical simulations that model only one of the feedback processes.
We investigate the relation of black hole mass versus host stellar mass and that of mass accretion rate versus star formation rate (SFR) in moderately luminous ($log L_{rm bol} sim 44.5-46.5 {rm erg s^{-1}}$), X-ray selected broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at $z=1.18-1.68$ in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field. The far-infrared to far-ultraviolet spectral energy distributions of 85 AGNs are reproduced with the latest version of Code Investigating GALaxy Emission ({tt CIGALE}), where the AGN clumpy torus model {tt SKIRTOR} is implemented. Most of their hosts are confirmed to be main-sequence star-forming galaxies. We find that the mean ratio of the black hole mass ($M_{rm BH}$) to the total stellar mass ($M_{rm stellar}$) is $log M_{rm BH}/M_{rm stellar} = -2.2$, which is similar to the local black hole-to-bulge mass ratio. This suggests that if the host galaxies of these moderately luminous AGNs at $zsim1.4$ are dominated by bulges, they already established the local black hole mass-bulge mass relation; if they are disk dominant, their black holes are overmassive relative to the bulges. AGN bolometric luminosities and SFR show a good correlation with ratios higher than that expected from the local black hole-to-bulge mass relation, suggesting that these AGNs are in a SMBH-growth dominant phase.
We characterize the incidence of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is 0.3 < z < 1 star-forming galaxies by applying multi-wavelength AGN diagnostics (X-ray, optical, mid-infrared, radio) to a sample of galaxies selected at 70-micron from the Far-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy survey (FIDEL). Given the depth of FIDEL, we detect normal galaxies on the specific star formation rate (sSFR) sequence as well as starbursting systems with elevated sSFR. We find an overall high occurrence of AGN of 37+/-3%, more than twice as high as in previous studies of galaxies with comparable infrared luminosities and redshifts but in good agreement with the AGN fraction of nearby (0.05 < z < 0.1) galaxies of similar infrared luminosities. The more complete census of AGNs comes from using the recently developed Mass-Excitation (MEx) diagnostic diagram. This optical diagnostic is also sensitive to X-ray weak AGNs and X-ray absorbed AGNs, and reveals that absorbed active nuclei reside almost exclusively in infrared-luminous hosts. The fraction of galaxies hosting an AGN appears to be independent of sSFR and remains elevated both on the sSFR sequence and above. In contrast, the fraction of AGNs that are X-ray absorbed increases substantially with increasing sSFR, possibly due to an increased gas fraction and/or gas density in the host galaxies.
Identifying the source population of ionizing radiation, responsible for the reionization of the universe, is currently a hotly debated subject with conflicting results. Studies of faint, high-redshift star-forming galaxies, in most cases, fail to detect enough escaping ionizing radiation to sustain the process. Recently, the capacity of bright quasi-stellar objects to ionize their surrounding medium has been confirmed also for faint active galactic nuclei (AGNs), which were found to display an escaping fraction of ~74% at z~4. Such levels of escaping radiation could sustain the required UV background, given the number density of faint AGNs is adequate. Thus, it is mandatory to accurately measure the luminosity function of faint AGNs (L~L*) in the same redshift range. For this reason we have conducted a spectroscopic survey, using the wide field spectrograph IMACS at the 6.5m Baade Telescope, to determine the nature of our sample of faint AGN candidates in the COSMOS field. This sample was assembled using photometric redshifts, color, and X-ray information. We ended up with 16 spectroscopically confirmed AGNs at 3.6<z<4.2 down to a magnitude of i$_{AB}$=23.0 for an area of 1.73 deg$^{2}$. This leads to an AGN space density of ~1.6$times10^{-6} Mpc^{-3}$ (corrected) at z~4 for an absolute magnitude of M$_{1450}$=-23.5. This is higher than previous measurements and seems to indicate that AGNs could make a substantial contribution to the ionizing background at z~4. Assuming that AGN physical parameters remain unchanged at higher redshifts and fainter luminosities, these sources could be regarded as the main drivers of cosmic reionization.
We investigate the contribution made by active galactic nuclei (AGN) to the high-redshift, luminous, submillimetre (submm) source population using deep (< 2 mJy/beam) Large Apex Bolometer Camera (LABOCA) 870 um observations within the William Herschel Deep Field (WHDF). This submm data complements previously obtained Chandra X-ray data of the field, from which AGN have been identified with the aid of follow-up optical spectra. From the LABOCA data, we detect 11 submm sources (based on a detection threshold of 3.2 sigma) with estimated fluxes of > 3 mJy/beam. Of the 11 identified submm sources, we find that 2 coincide with observed AGN and that, based on their hardness ratios, both of these AGN appear to be heavily obscured. We perform a stacking of the submm data around the AGN, which we group by estimated column density, and find that only the obscured (N_H > 10^22 cm^2) AGN show significant associated submm emission. These observations support the previous findings of Page et al and Hill et al that obscured AGN preferentially show submm emission. Hill et al have argued that, in this case, the contribution to the observed submm emission (and thus the submm background) from AGN heating of the dust in these sources may be higher than previously thought.