Gas-Poor Hosts and Gas-Rich Companions of z≈3.5 Radio Active Galactic Nuclei: ALMA Insights into Jet Triggering and Feedback

2025/06/12 by Wang, Wuji, De Breuck, Carlos, Wylezalek, Dominika +7
#Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.10799

Abstract

Cold gaseous systems play important roles in galaxy evolution by possibly providing fuel to ignite active galactic nuclei (AGN) activity and star-formation. In this work, we analyze [CII]158\rm μm and continuum observations from ALMA for a sample of four radio AGN at z ≈ 3.5, focusing on eight associated companion cloud systems discovered within projected distances of tens of kiloparsecs or less. The spatial distribution of these companions indicates that the majority of cold gas is not located at the AGN position, i.e., not in their host galaxies. With the assistance of [CII] at 0.2" resolution, we further confirm the gas-poor nature of the hosts by re-analyzing archival [CI] (a tracer of H₂) at ∼2" resolution. Our sample has [CII] luminosities in a range of 2.8×10⁸

Citations

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• Faint [CI](1-0) emission in z ∼ 3.5 radio galaxies
• ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey: Molecular Gas Properties of Line-Emitting Galaxies from a Blind Survey
• Molecular gas in radio galaxies at z=0.4-2.6 in (proto-)cluster environment