A1 Vertaisarvioitu alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä lehdessä

Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): The Weak Environmental Dependence of Quasar Activity at 0.1 < z < 0.35




TekijätWethers Clare F, Acharya Nischal, De Propris Roberto, Kotilainen Jari, Baldry Ivan K, Brough Sarah, Driver Simon P, Graham Alister W, Holwerda Benne W, Hopkins Andrew M, Lopez-Sanchez Angel R, Loveday Jonathan, Phillipps Steven, Pimbblet Kevin A, Taylor Edward, Wang Lingyu, Wright Angus H

KustantajaIOP Publishing Ltd

Julkaisuvuosi2022

JournalAstrophysical Journal

Tietokannassa oleva lehden nimiASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

Lehden akronyymiASTROPHYS J

Artikkelin numero 192

Vuosikerta928

Numero2

Sivujen määrä16

ISSN0004-637X

eISSN1538-4357

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac409c

Verkko-osoitehttps://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac409c

Rinnakkaistallenteen osoitehttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/175241367

Preprintin osoitehttps://arxiv.org/abs/2112.03285


Tiivistelmä
Understanding the connection between nuclear activity and galaxy environment remains critical in constraining models of galaxy evolution. By exploiting the extensive cataloged data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey, we identify a representative sample of 205 quasars at 0.1 < z < 0.35 and establish a comparison sample of galaxies, closely matched to the quasar sample in terms of both stellar mass and redshift. On scales <1 Mpc, the galaxy number counts and group membership of quasars appear entirely consistent with those of the matched galaxy sample. Despite this, we find that quasars are similar to 1.5 times more likely to be classified as the group center, indicating a potential link between quasar activity and cold gas flows or galaxy interactions associated with rich group environments. On scales of similar to a few Mpc, the clustering strengths of both samples are statistically consistent, and beyond 10 Mpc, we find no evidence that quasars trace large-scale structures any more than the galaxy control sample. Both populations are found to prefer intermediate-density sheets and filaments to either very high-density environments or very low-density environments. This weak dependence of quasar activity on galaxy environment supports a paradigm in which quasars represent a phase in the lifetime of all massive galaxies and in which secular processes and a group-centric location are the dominant triggers of quasars at low redshift.

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