Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei
The coevolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies represents a fundamental question in astrophysics. One approach to investigating this question involves comparing the star formation rates (SFRs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with those of typical star-forming galaxies. At relat...
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IOP Publishing
2024-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad9278 |
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| author | Bojun Zhang Fan Zou W. N. Brandt Shifu Zhu Nathan Cristello Qingling Ni Yongquan Xue Zhibo Yu |
| author_facet | Bojun Zhang Fan Zou W. N. Brandt Shifu Zhu Nathan Cristello Qingling Ni Yongquan Xue Zhibo Yu |
| author_sort | Bojun Zhang |
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| description | The coevolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies represents a fundamental question in astrophysics. One approach to investigating this question involves comparing the star formation rates (SFRs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with those of typical star-forming galaxies. At relatively low redshifts ( z ≲ 1), radio AGNs manifest diminished SFRs, indicating suppressed star formation, but their behavior at higher redshifts is unclear. To examine this, we leveraged galaxy and radio-AGN data from the well-characterized W-CDF-S, ELAIS-S1, and XMM-LSS fields. We established two mass-complete reference star-forming galaxy samples and two radio-AGN samples, consisting of 1763 and 6766 radio AGNs, the former being higher in purity and the latter more complete. We subsequently computed star-forming fractions ( f _SF ; the fraction of star-forming galaxies to all galaxies) for galaxies and radio-AGN host galaxies and conducted a robust comparison between them up to z ≈ 3. We found that the tendency for radio AGNs to reside in massive galaxies primarily accounts for their low f _SF , which also shows a strong negative dependence upon M _⋆ and a strong positive evolution with z . To investigate further the star formation characteristics of those star-forming radio AGNs, we constructed the star-forming main sequence (MS) and investigated the behavior of the position of AGNs relative to the MS at z ≈ 0–3. Our results reveal that radio AGNs display lower SFRs than star-forming galaxies in the low- z and high- M _⋆ regime and, conversely, exhibit comparable or higher SFRs than MS star-forming galaxies at higher redshifts or lower M _⋆ . |
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| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1538-4357 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
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| series | The Astrophysical Journal |
| spelling | doaj-art-0477e5b1e1214779bcddb0d55b56c9992024-12-20T17:12:03ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal1538-43572024-01-019781910.3847/1538-4357/ad9278Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic NucleiBojun Zhang0https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8209-4613Fan Zou1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4436-6923W. N. Brandt2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0167-2453Shifu Zhu3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1653-4969Nathan Cristello4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6317-8488Qingling Ni5https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8577-2717Yongquan Xue6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1935-8104Zhibo Yu7https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6990-9058Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, T he Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA ; bjz5234@psu.edu, fanzou01@gmail.com; CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, People's Republic of China; School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, People's Republic of ChinaDepartment of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, T he Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA ; bjz5234@psu.edu, fanzou01@gmail.com; Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , 1085 S University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USADepartment of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, T he Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA ; bjz5234@psu.edu, fanzou01@gmail.com; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Department of Physics, 104 Davey Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USACAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, People's Republic of China; School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, People's Republic of ChinaDepartment of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, T he Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA ; bjz5234@psu.edu, fanzou01@gmail.comMax-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) , Gießenbachstraße 1, D-85748 Garching bei München, GermanyCAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, People's Republic of China; School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026, People's Republic of ChinaDepartment of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, T he Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA ; bjz5234@psu.edu, fanzou01@gmail.com; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USAThe coevolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies represents a fundamental question in astrophysics. One approach to investigating this question involves comparing the star formation rates (SFRs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with those of typical star-forming galaxies. At relatively low redshifts ( z ≲ 1), radio AGNs manifest diminished SFRs, indicating suppressed star formation, but their behavior at higher redshifts is unclear. To examine this, we leveraged galaxy and radio-AGN data from the well-characterized W-CDF-S, ELAIS-S1, and XMM-LSS fields. We established two mass-complete reference star-forming galaxy samples and two radio-AGN samples, consisting of 1763 and 6766 radio AGNs, the former being higher in purity and the latter more complete. We subsequently computed star-forming fractions ( f _SF ; the fraction of star-forming galaxies to all galaxies) for galaxies and radio-AGN host galaxies and conducted a robust comparison between them up to z ≈ 3. We found that the tendency for radio AGNs to reside in massive galaxies primarily accounts for their low f _SF , which also shows a strong negative dependence upon M _⋆ and a strong positive evolution with z . To investigate further the star formation characteristics of those star-forming radio AGNs, we constructed the star-forming main sequence (MS) and investigated the behavior of the position of AGNs relative to the MS at z ≈ 0–3. Our results reveal that radio AGNs display lower SFRs than star-forming galaxies in the low- z and high- M _⋆ regime and, conversely, exhibit comparable or higher SFRs than MS star-forming galaxies at higher redshifts or lower M _⋆ .https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad9278Radio active galactic nucleiGalaxiesStar formation |
| spellingShingle | Bojun Zhang Fan Zou W. N. Brandt Shifu Zhu Nathan Cristello Qingling Ni Yongquan Xue Zhibo Yu Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei The Astrophysical Journal Radio active galactic nuclei Galaxies Star formation |
| title | Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei |
| title_full | Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei |
| title_fullStr | Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei |
| title_full_unstemmed | Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei |
| title_short | Investigating the Star Formation Characteristics of Radio Active Galactic Nuclei |
| title_sort | investigating the star formation characteristics of radio active galactic nuclei |
| topic | Radio active galactic nuclei Galaxies Star formation |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad9278 |
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