Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-03-24
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Accepted for publication in Science. Published by Science Express on March 25th. 17 pages, 5 figures, including supplemental o
Scientific paper
Despite observed strong correlations between central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and star-formation in galactic nuclei, uncertainties exist in our understanding of their coupling. We present observations of the ratio of heavily-obscured to unobscured quasars as a function of cosmic epoch up to z~3, and show that a simple physical model describing mergers of massive, gas-rich galaxies matches these observations. In the context of this model, every obscured and unobscured quasar represent two distinct phases that result from a massive galaxy merger event. Much of the mass growth of the SMBH occurs during the heavily-obscured phase. These observations provide additional evidence for a causal link between gas-rich galaxy mergers, accretion onto the nuclear SMBH and coeval star formation.
Kartaltepe Jeyhan
Natarajan Priyamvada
Sanders David
Schawinski Kevin
Treister Ezequiel
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