Computer Science – Graphics
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21540116r&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #401.16; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.220
Computer Science
Graphics
Scientific paper
Although the numbers of known quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGN) have grown considerably in the past decade, a vast discovery space remains to be explored. LSST will fill the gaps by producing a sample of at least 10 million optically-selected AGNs that will span more than a factor of 1,000,000 in luminosity, and will allow detection of 1000 AGN beyond a redshift of 7. Utilizing a combination of colors, photometric variability, and lack of proper motion, this large-area AGN survey will dwarf the largest current samples by more than an order of magnitude. Each LSST region will receive 1000 visits, allowing variability to be explored on timescales from minutes to a decade. The ground-breaking combination of area, depth, and cadence will allow for significant new AGN (and other related transient) science. LSST will break the luminosity-redshift degeneracy inherent to shallower flux-limited samples and provide unprecedented quantification of the optical AGN luminosity function. Such statistical studies will help define the demographics and accretion history of supermassive black holes with cosmic time, and relate these to the formation and evolution of galaxies. LSST will discover sufficient numbers of faint, high-redshift AGN to enable clustering measurements that will place important constraints on models for the relationship between AGN and the dark matter distribution. LSST will also investigate multi-wavelength phenomena, with its power coming from the ability to compare with both wide-area and pencil-beam surveys at other wavelengths. The former is important for investigations of rare objects, the latter for probing intrinsically more numerous, but undersampled populations. In short, LSST will produce transformative results in our understanding of AGN fueling mechanisms, the physics of accretion disks, the contribution of AGN feedback to galaxy evolution, the cosmic dark ages, and science based on the use of AGN as background sources.
Anderson Scott F.
Ballantyne David R.
Barth Aaron J.
Brandt Wiliam N.
Brunner Robert J.
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