Star Formation in the Hosts of High-z QSOs: Evidence from Spitzer PAH Detections

By D. Lutz, E. Sturm, L. Tacconi, E. Valiante, M. Schweitzer, H. Netzer, R. Maiolino, P. Andreani, O. Shemmer, Sylvain Veilleux. 2008

138 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present Spitzer rest frame mid-infrared spectroscopy of 12 z ∼ 2 millimeter-bright type 1 QSOs, selected from unlensed and lensed QSO samples and covering a range of AGN optical luminosities L5100 = 1045–1047 erg s−1. On top of the AGN continuum, we detect PAH emission from luminous star formation in nine objects individually, as well as in the composite spectrum for the full sample. PAH luminosity and rest frame far-infrared luminosity correlate and extend a similar correlation for lower luminosity local QSOs. This provides strong evidence for intense star formation in the hosts of these millimeter-bright QSOs, sometimes exceeding 1000 M☉ yr−1 and dominating their rest frame far-infrared emission. The PAH-based limit on star formation rates is lower for luminous z ∼ 2 QSOs that are not preselected for their millimeter emission. Partly dependent on systematic changes of the AGN dust covering factor and the dust spectral energy distribution of the AGN proper, the spectral energy distributions of millimeter-faint high-z QSOs may be AGN dominated out to rest frame far-infrared wavelengths. Toward the most luminous high-z QSOs, there is a flattening of the relation between star formation and AGN luminosity that is observed for lower redshift QSOs. No QSO in our sample has a PAH-measured star formation rate in excess of 3000 M☉ yr−1.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5901e898645c8e414718950264ab34503bcab3c8

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Citations in the corpus

• Enhanced star formation rates in AGN hosts with respect to inactive galaxies from PEP-Herschel observations (2012, background): “(Rowan-Robinson 1995; Schweitzer et al. 2006; Netzer et al. 2007; Lutz et al. 2008; Bonfield et al. 2011).”
• The Dramatic Size Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies and the Quasar Feedback (2008, background): “…onset of the massive outflows determining the transition from the active star-forming phase to the unobscured QSO phase, indicate very large gas masses in the central regions of their host galaxies (Lutz et al. 2008, and references therein), comparable to the stellar masses (Coppin et al. 2008).”
• Accretion and star formation rates in low‐redshift type II active galactic nuclei (2009, methodology): “As shown in Netzer et al. (2007) for the QUEST sample, and in Lutz et al. (2008) for the high redshift QSOs, there is a strong correlation between LSF obtained from the FIR and L5100 over almost four orders of magnitude in Lbol.”
• The mean star formation rate of X-ray selected active galaxies and its evolution from z~2.5: results from PEP-Herschel (2012, methodology): “Morphological studies of low-redshift star-forming QSOs also find frequent merger signatures (Canalizo & Stockton 2001; Urrutia et al. 2008; Veilleux et al. 2009).”
• What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “There is a general correlation between star-formation rate (SFR) and mass accretion rate for individual distant AGNs (e.g., Schweitzer et al., 2006; Lutz et al., 2008; Shi et al., 2009; Silverman et al., 2009b; Trichas et al., 2009; Rafferty et al., 2011).”
• BLACK HOLE VARIABILITY AND THE STAR FORMATION–ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS CONNECTION: DO ALL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES HOST AN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS? (2013, methodology): “…between the global histories of SF and BH accretion (e.g., Boyle & Terlevich 1998; Silverman et al. 2008; Aird et al. 2010; Merloni & Heinz 2013), and the observed tendency of luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to reside in star-forming hosts (e.g., Lutz et al. 2008; Bonfield et al. 2011).”
• Observational evidence of quasar feedback quenching star formation at high redshift (2011, background): “The integrated emission of the narrow Hα yields a total star formation rate in the host galaxy of about 100 M⊙ yr−1 (by using the conversion factor given in Kennicutt, 1998), which is not unusual in high-z quasars (e.g. Lutz et al., 2008).”
• Star formation in AGN hosts in GOODS-N (2010, background): “High redshift QSOs appear to extend this relation to yet higher luminosities (e.g. Lutz et al. 2008 and references therein).”
• The Illustris simulation: the evolving population of black holes across cosmic time (2014, background): “However, the most luminous AGN seem to be correlated with high star formation rates (see e.g. Lutz et al. 2008; Rosario et al. 2012) and Hickox et al. (2014) discussed the possibility that while star formation and black hole activity are correlated over long timescales, AGN variability introduces a…”
• A 158 μm [C ii] LINE SURVEY OF GALAXIES AT z ∼ 1–2: AN INDICATOR OF STAR FORMATION IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE (2010, background): “This work was extended and expanded by Shi et al. (2007) to include more than 200 AGNs from the local Universe, and by Lutz et al. (2008) who observed a dozen high luminosity (Lopt up to 2 × 1013 L ) AGNs at redshifts ∼2, with similar conclusions—most of the FIR luminosity from these systems has…”
• A CORRELATION BETWEEN STAR FORMATION RATE AND AVERAGE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION IN STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2013, background): “For high-luminosity AGNs, an increase in the average SFR as a function of BHAR has been observed (e.g. Lutz et al. 2008; Serjeant & Hatziminaoglou 2009; Serjeant et al. 2010; Mor et al. 2012), while other studies have also found weak or inverted connections (Page et al. 2012; Harrison et al. 2012).”
• Deep Spitzer 24 μm COSMOS Imaging. I. The Evolution of Luminous Dusty Galaxies—Confronting the Models (2009, background): “…tremendous progress in our understanding of the bolometric properties of distant sources (e.g., Huang et al. 2005; Yan et al. 2005; Daddi et al. 2005; Papovich et al. 2006; Webb et al. 2006; Reddy et al. 2006; Menéndez-Delmestre et al. 2007; Sajina et al. 2007; Lutz et al. 2008; Pope et al. 2008).”