The origin of the break in the AGN luminosity function

Details The origin of the break in the AGN luminosity function The origin of the break in the AGN luminosity function

Jul 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007hst..prop11237w&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #11237. Cycle 16

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

We propose to use NICMOS imaging to measure rest-frame optical luminosities and morphological properties of a complete sample of faint AGN host galaxies at redshifts z ~ 1.4. The targets are drawn from the VLT-VIMOS Deep Survey, and they constitute a sample of the lowest luminosity type 1 AGN known at z > 1. The spectroscopically estimated black hole masses are up to an order of magnitude higher than expected given their nuclear luminosities, implying highly sub-Eddington accretion rates. This exactly matches the prediction made by recent theoretical models of AGN evolution, according to which the faint end of the AGN luminosity function is populated mainly by big black holes that have already exhausted a good part of their fuel. In this proposal we want to test further predictions of that hypothesis, by focussing on the host galaxy properties of our low-luminosity, low-accretion AGN. If the local ratio between black hole and bulge masses holds at least approximately at these redshifts, one expects most of these low-luminosity AGN to reside in fairly big ellipticals with stellar masses around and above 10^11 solar masses in contrast to the Seyfert phenomenon in the local universe. With NICMOS imaging we will find out whether that is true, implying also a sensitive test for the validity of the M_BH/M_bulge relation at z ~ 1.4.;

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