Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21742104y&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #421.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Other
Scientific paper
We present a study of the morphology and intensity of star formation in the host galaxies of eight Palomar-Green quasars using observations with the Hubble Space Telescope. Accretion-powered and star formation activity have been shown to coincide, motivating us to search for the star-forming regions in the host galaxies of quasars and to determine the star-formation rates. In this work we use calibrated narrow band emission line (H-beta and Pa-alpha) WFPC2 and NICMOS images as maps for total star formation rate. The main challenge in imaging quasar host galaxies is the separation of the quasar light from the galaxy light, especially in the case of z approximately 0.1 quasars in WFPC2 images where the PSF radius closely matches the expected host scale radius. To this this end we present a novel technique for image decomposition and subtraction of quasar light, which we have validated through extensive simulations using artificial quasar+galaxy images. The other significant challenge in mapping and measuring star forming regions is correcting for extinction, which we address using extinction maps created from the Pa-alpha/H-beta ratio. To determine the source of excitation, we utilize H-beta along with [OIII]5007 and [OII]3727 images in diagnostic line ratio (BPT) diagrams. We detect extended line emission in our targets on scales of order 1-2 kpc. A preliminary analysis suggests star formation rates of order 10 solar masses per year.
Ciardullo Robin
Eracleous Michael
Gronwall Caryl
Netzer Hagai
Shemmer Ohad
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