Herschel-ATLAS: the link between accretion luminosity and star formation in quasar host galaxies

Bonfield, D. G., Jarvis, M. J., Hardcastle, M. J., Cooray, A., Hatziminaoglou, E., Ivison, R. J., Page, M. J., Stevens, J. A., de Zotti, G., Auld, Robbie Richard, Baes, M., Buttiglione, S., Cava, A., Dariush, Aliakbar, Dunlop, J. S., Dunne, L., Dye, Simon, Eales, Stephen Anthony ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7394-426X, Fritz, J., Hopwood, R., Ibar, E., Maddox, S. J., Michałowski, M. J., Pascale, Enzo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3242-8154, Pohlen, Michael, Rigby, E. E., Rodighiero, G., Serjeant, S., Smith, D. J. B., Temi, P. and van der Werf, P. 2011. Herschel-ATLAS: the link between accretion luminosity and star formation in quasar host galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 416 (1) , pp. 13-21. 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.18826.x

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Abstract

We use the science demonstration field data of the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey to study how star formation, traced by the far-infrared Herschel data, is related to both the accretion luminosity and redshift of quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the 2dF-SDSS luminous red galaxy (LRG) and Quasar Spectroscopic Catalogue survey. By developing a maximum-likelihood estimator to investigate the presence of correlations between the far-infrared and optical luminosities, we find evidence that the star formation in quasar hosts is correlated with both redshift and quasar accretion luminosity. Assuming a relationship of the form LIR∝LθQSO(1 +z)ζ, we find θ= 0.22 ± 0.08 and ζ= 1.6 ± 0.4, although there is substantial additional uncertainty in ζ of the order of ±1, due to uncertainties in the host galaxy dust temperature. We find evidence for a large intrinsic dispersion in the redshift dependence, but no evidence for intrinsic dispersion in the correlation between LQSO and LIR, suggesting that the latter may be due to a direct physical connection between star formation and black hole accretion. This is consistent with the idea that both the quasar activity and star formation are dependent on the same reservoir of cold gas, so that they are both affected by the influx of cold gas during mergers or heating of gas via feedback processes.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy
Uncontrolled Keywords:	galaxies: active; galaxies: high-redshift; quasars: general
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0035-8711/ (accessed 20/02/2014).
Publisher:	Royal Astronomical Society
ISSN:	0035-8711
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	20 Jul 2023 19:03
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/19599

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