2021MNRAS.502..662B -
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 502, 662-677 (2021/March-3)
The rapid transition from star formation to AGN-dominated rest-frame ultraviolet light at z ≃ 4.
BOWLER R.A.A., ADAMS N.J., JARVIS M.J. and HAUSSLER B.
Abstract (from CDS):
With the advent of deep optical-to-near-infrared extragalactic imaging on the degree scale, samples of high-redshift sources are being selected that contain both bright star-forming (SF) galaxies and faint active galactic nuclei (AGN). In this study, we investigate the transition between SF- and AGN-dominated systems at z ≃ 4 in the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV). We find a rapid transition to AGN-dominated sources brightward of MUV ≃ -23.2. The effect is observed in the rest-frame UV morphology and size-luminosity relation, where extended clumpy systems become point-source-dominated, and also in the available spectra for the sample. These results allow us to derive the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF) for the SF- and AGN-dominated subsamples. We find the SF-dominated LF is best fit with a double power law, with a lensed Schechter function being unable to explain the existence of extremely luminous SF galaxies at MUV ≃ -23.5. If we identify AGN-dominated sources according to a point-source morphology criterion, we recover the relatively flat faint-end slope of the AGN LF determined in previous studies. If we instead separate the LF according to the current spectroscopic AGN fraction, we find a steeper faint-end slope of α = -1.83 ± 0.11. Using a simple model to predict the rest-frame AGN LF from the z = 4 galaxy LF, we find that the increasing impact of host galaxy light on the measured morphology of faint AGN can explain our observations.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society
Journal keyword(s):
galaxies: high-redshift - galaxies: active - galaxies: luminosity function, mass function
Status at CDS
:
All or part of tables of objects could be ingested in SIMBAD with priority 2.
Simbad objects:
2
Full paper
View the references in ADS
To bookmark this query, right click on this link: simbad:2021MNRAS.502..662B and select 'bookmark this link' or equivalent in the popup menu