No Arabic abstract
We investigate the infrared (IR) emission of high-redshift ($zsim 6$), highly star-forming (${ {rm SFR} > 100}$ $M_{rm odot} {rm yr}^{-1}$) galaxies, with/without Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), using a suite of cosmological simulations featuring dust radiative transfer. Synthetic Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) are used to quantify the relative contribution of stars/AGN to dust heating. In dusty (${M_{rm d}gtrsim 3times 10^7 M_{rm odot}}$) galaxies, $gtrsim 50-90 %$ of the UV radiation is obscured by dust inhomogeneities on scales ${gtrsim 100}$ pc. In runs with AGN, a clumpy, warm ($approx 250$ K) dust component co-exists with a colder ($approx 60$ K) and more diffuse one, heated by stars. Warm dust provides up to ${50 %}$ of the total IR luminosity, but only $lesssim 0.1 %$ of the total mass content. The AGN boosts the MIR flux by ${10-100 times}$ with respect to star forming galaxies, without significantly affecting the FIR. Our simulations successfully reproduce the observed SED of bright (${M_{rm UV}sim -26}$) ${zsim 6}$ quasars, and show that these objects are part of complex, dust-rich merging systems, containing multiple sources (accreting BHs and/or star forming galaxies) in agreement with recent HST and ALMA observations. Our results show that the proposed ORIGINS missions will be able to investigate the MIR properties of dusty star forming galaxies and to obtain good quality spectra of bright quasars at $zsim 6$. Finally, the MIR-to-FIR flux ratio of faint (${M_{rm UV}sim -24}$) AGN is ${>10times}$ higher than for normal star forming galaxies. This implies that combined JWST/ORIGINS/ALMA observations will be crucial to identify faint and/or dust-obscured AGN in the distant Universe.
Submillimetre-selected galaxies (SMGs) at high redshift ($z$ $sim$ 2) are potential host galaxies of active galactic nuclei (AGN). If the local Universe is a good guide, $sim$ 50$%$ of the obscured AGN amongst the SMG population could be missed even in the deepest X-ray surveys. Radio observations are insensitive to obscuration; therefore, very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) can be used as a tool to identify AGN in obscured systems. A well-established upper limit to the brightness temperature of 10$^5$ K exists in star-forming systems, thus VLBI observations can distinguish AGN from star-forming systems via brightness temperature measurements. We present 1.6 GHz European VLBI Network (EVN) observations of four SMGs (with measured redshifts) to search for evidence of compact radio components associated with AGN cores. For two of the sources, e-MERLIN images are also presented. Out of the four SMGs observed, we detect one source, J123555.14, that has an integrated EVN flux density of 201 $pm$ 15.2 $mu$Jy, corresponding to a brightness temperature of 5.2 $pm$ 0.7 $times$ 10$^5$ K. We therefore identify that the radio emission from J123555.14 is associated with an AGN. We do not detect compact radio emission from a possible AGN in the remaining sources (J123600.10, J131225.73, and J163650.43). In the case of J131225.73, this is particularly surprising, and the data suggest that this may be an extended, jet-dominated AGN that is resolved by VLBI. Since the morphology of the faint radio source population is still largely unknown at these scales, it is possible that with a $sim$ 10 mas resolution, VLBI misses (or resolves) many radio AGN extended on kiloparsec scales.
We study the morphological and structural properties of the host galaxies associated with 57 optically-selected luminous type 2 AGN at $zsim$0.3-0.4: 16 high-luminosity Seyfert 2 (HLSy2, 8.0$le$log($L_{rm [OIII]}/L_{odot})<$8.3) and 41 obscured quasars (QSO2, log($L_{rm [OIII]}/L_{odot})ge$8.3). With this work, the total number of QSO2 at $z<1$ with parametrized galaxies increases from $sim$35 to 76. Our analysis is based on HST WFPC2 and ACS images that we fit with {sc GALFIT}. HLSy2 and QSO2 show a wide diversity of galaxy hosts. The main difference lies in the higher incidence of highly-disturbed systems among QSO2. This is consistent with a scenario in which galaxy interactions are the dominant mechanism triggering nuclear activity at the highest AGN power. There is a strong dependence of galaxy properties with AGN power (assuming $L_ {rm [OIII]}$ is an adequate proxy). The relative contribution of the spheroidal component to the total galaxy light (B/T) increases with $L_ {rm [OIII]}$. While systems dominated by the spheoridal component spread across the total range of $L_ {rm [OIII]}$, most disk-dominated galaxies concentrate at log($L_{rm [OIII]}/L_{odot})<$8.6. This is expected if more powerful AGN are powered by more massive black holes which are hosted by more massive bulges or spheroids. The average galaxy sizes ($langle r_{rm e} rangle$) are 5.0$pm$1.5 kpc for HLSy2 and 3.9$pm$0.6 kpc for HLSy2 and QSO2 respectively. These are significantly smaller than those found for QSO1 and narrow line radio galaxies at similar $z$. We put the results of our work in context of related studies of AGN with quasar-like luminosities.
Lyman Limit systems (LLSs) trace the low-density circumgalactic medium and the most dense regions of the intergalactic medium, so their number density and evolution at high redshift, just after reionisation, are important to constrain. We present a survey for LLSs at high redshifts, $z_{rm LLS} =3.5$--5.4, in the homogeneous dataset of 153 optical quasar spectra at $z sim 5$ from the Giant Gemini GMOS survey. Our analysis includes detailed investigation of survey biases using mock spectra which provide important corrections to the raw measurements. We estimate the incidence of LLSs per unit redshift at $z approx 4.4$ to be $ell(z) = 2.6 pm 0.4$. Combining our results with previous surveys at $z_{rm LLS} <4$, the best-fit power-law evolution is $ell(z) = ell_* [(1+z)/4]^alpha$ with $ell_* = 1.46 pm 0.11$ and $alpha = 1.70 pm 0.22$ (68% confidence intervals). Despite hints in previous $z_{rm LLS} <4$ results, there is no indication for a deviation from this single power-law soon after reionization. Finally, we integrate our new results with previous surveys of the intergalactic and circumgalactic media to constrain the hydrogen column density distribution function, $f(N_{rm HI},X)$, over 10 orders of magnitude. The data at $z sim 5$ are not well described by the $f(N_{rm HI},X)$ model previously reported for $z sim 2$--3 (after re-scaling) and a 7-pivot model fitting the full $z sim 2$--5 dataset is statistically unacceptable. We conclude that there is significant evolution in the shape of $f(N_{rm HI},X)$ over this $sim$2 billion year period.
We study the mass of quasar-hosting dark matter halos at z $sim$ 6 and further constrain the fraction of dark matter halos hosting an active quasar $f_{on}$ and the quasar beaming angle $i_{rm max}$ using observations of CII lines in the literature. We make assumptions that (1) more massive halos host brighter quasars, (2) a fraction of the halos host active quasars with a certain beaming angle, (3) cold gas in galaxies has rotational velocity $V_{rm circ}=alpha V_{rm max}$, and that (4) quasars point randomly on the sky. We find that for a choice of specific $alpha gtrsim 1$, the most likely solution has $f_{rm on} < 0.01$, corresponding to a small duty cycle of quasar activity. However, if we marginalize over $alpha$, for some choices of a prior a second solution with $f_{rm on}=1$ appears. Overall, our the constraints are highly sensitive to $alpha$ and hence inconclusive. Stronger constraints on $f_{rm on}$ can be made if we better understand the dynamics of cold gas in these galaxies.
Euclid, WFIRST, and HETDEX will make emission-line selected galaxies the largest observed constituent in the $z > 1$ universe. However, we only have a limited understanding of the physical properties of galaxies selected via their Ly$alpha$ or rest-frame optical emission lines. To begin addressing this problem, we present the basic properties of $sim 2,000$ AEGIS, COSMOS, GOODS-N, GOODS-S, and UDS galaxies identified in the redshift range $1.90 < z < 2.35$ via their [O II], H$beta$, and [O III] emission lines. For these $z sim 2$ galaxies, [O III] is generally much brighter than [O II] and H$beta$, with typical rest-frame equivalent widths of several hundred Angstroms. Moreover, these strong emission-line systems span an extremely wide range of stellar mass ($sim 3$ dex), star-formation rate ($sim 2$ dex), and [O III] luminosity ($sim 2$ dex). Comparing the distributions of these properties to those of continuum selected galaxies, we find that emission-line galaxies have systematically lower stellar masses and lower optical/UV dust attenuations. These measurements lay the groundwork for an extensive comparison between these rest-frame optical emission-line galaxies and Ly$alpha$ emitters identified in the HETDEX survey.