Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2008-07-21
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, 2 figures. To be published by the Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana, Vol. 79, in the Proceedings of the Work
Scientific paper
To study the relevance of mergers for the fueling of QSOs, we are currently conducting an HST imaging campaign of a sample of QSO host galaxies classified as ellipticals in the literature. Here, we present results from a study of the first five QSO host galaxies imaged with HST/ACS. For the majority of objects, strong signs of interactions such as tidal tails, shells, and other fine structure are revealed. We estimate the nature and age of the merger by comparing the images with numerical simulations. The merger ages range between a few hundred Myr up to a Gyr. These timescales are comparable to starburst ages in the QSO hosts previously inferred from Keck spectroscopy, but longer than theoretical estimates of AGN duty cycles. A possible scenario emerging from our results is that most QSO host galaxies experienced mergers with accompanying starbursts but that the activity is triggered with a delay of several hundreds Myr after the merger. To probe whether there is indeed a causal connection between the merger and the QSO activity, we study a control sample of inactive ellipticals. Our preliminary results do not reveal comparable fine structure.
Bennert Nicola
Canalizo Gabriela
Jungwiert Bruno
Lacy Mark
Peng Chien Y.
No associations
LandOfFree
Fueling QSOs: The Relevance of 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 Fueling QSOs: The Relevance of Mergers, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Fueling QSOs: The Relevance of Mergers will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-435506