2015/04/08 by Eilat Glikman, Brooke Simmons, Glikman, Eilat +9 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors #FOS: Physical sciences
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1504.02111
openalex publication_date 2015/04/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We used the Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 near-infrared camera to image the host galaxies of a sample of eleven luminous, dust-reddened quasars at z ~ 2 -- the peak epoch of black hole growth and star formation in the Universe -- to test the merger-driven picture for the co-evolution of galaxies and their nuclear black holes. The red quasars come from the FIRST+2MASS red quasar survey and a newer, deeper, UKIDSS+FIRST sample. These dust-reddened quasars are the most intrinsically luminous quasars in the Universe at all redshifts, and may represent the dust-clearing transitional phase in the merger-driven black hole growth scenario. Probing the host galaxies in rest-frame visible light, the HST images reveal that 8/10 of these quasars have actively merging hosts, while one source is reddened by an intervening lower redshift galaxy along the line-of-sight. We study the morphological properties of the quasar hosts using parametric Sersic fits as well as the non-parametric estimators (Gini coefficient, M20 and asymmetry). Their properties are heterogeneous but broadly consistent with the most extreme morphologies of local merging systems such as Ultraluminous Infrared galaxies. The red quasars have a luminosity range of log(Lbol) = 47.8 - 48.3 (erg/s) and the merger fraction of their AGN hosts is consistent with merger-driven models of luminous AGN activity at z=2, which supports the picture in which luminous quasars and galaxies co-evolve through major mergers that trigger both star formation and black hole growth.