Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...211.7506b&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #75.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.866
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We are currently studying a sample of early-type QSO host galaxies and their inactive counterparts, ellipticals, to address the question of the relevance of mergers for the fueling of QSOs. We present the results for our pilot study of 5 QSOs obtained from deep (5 orbits) HST ACS images in broad-band V. The majority of the host galaxies (4/5) reveal strong signs of interaction such as shells and tidal tails. This tale-telling fine structure is indicative of merger events a few hundred Myr to over a Gyr ago - timescales comparable to starburst ages in the QSO hosts previously revealed by Keck spectroscopy. None of the inactive ellipticals in the control sample studied so far exhibits comparable fine structure and the stellar populations seem significantly older. Our preliminary results show that the relation between mergers, starburst, and nuclear activity in QSO host galaxies is more than coincidental and suggest that a large fraction of QSOs suffered mergers which were responsible for the triggering of both the starburst and the nuclear activity.
Bennert Nicola
Canalizo Gabriela
Hiner Kyle D.
Jungwiert Bruno
Lacy Mark
No associations
LandOfFree
The Nature of QSO Host Galaxies: Bonafide Ellipticals or Recent Mergers? does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The Nature of QSO Host Galaxies: Bonafide Ellipticals or Recent Mergers?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Nature of QSO Host Galaxies: Bonafide Ellipticals or Recent Mergers? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1478516