RSN1: The Circumgalactic medium, outflows and environment around luminous quasars from Reionisation to Cosmic Noon - STILES #2

Dottorato - PhD thesis

Area Tematica: RSN 1 - Galassie e cosmologia

Referente: Valentina D'Odoico (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Chiara Feruglio (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Titolo: The Circumgalactic medium, outflows and environment around luminous quasars from Reionisation to Cosmic Noon - STILES #2

 

We propose a PhD project on the topic of bright quasars at high redshift, from the Reionisation Epoch z>6, to Cosmic noon (z~3) and their environment. These AGN are powered by super massive black holes (SMBH) in their centers (MBH>10^8 Msun, e.g. Shen et al. 2019), challenging models of early black holes formation and growth (e.g., Volonteri et al. 2021) and they are expected to drive strong outflows affecting the host galaxy and their close environment (Costa et al. 2014). Furthermore, QSOs trace the rarest environments at high redshift and are the most strongly clustered population in the universe, which also implies that they reside in the most massive dark matter halos, Mhalo > 10^12 Msun (Shen et al. 2007). This is supported by the detection of line of sight absorbers and/or Damped Lyman alpha systems (DLA) associated to quasars, tracing galaxy overdensities in their vicinity (e.g. Prochaska et al. 2008; Perrotta et al. 2016; D'Odorico et al. 2018; Banados et al. 2019). Recent JWST WFSS observations detected galaxy overdensity and filamentary structures around quasars, with on average 10 [OIII] emitters associated with each quasar halo (EIGER program field published in Kashino et al. 2022), confirming the predictions of cosmological simulations (Costa et al. 2014).

In this framework, the project we propose will investigate:

  • The presence and nature of outflows through the correlation between CIV absorbers in the proximity of the QSO - as probes of the Circum galactic medium and outflows - and winds detected through broad/blueshifted CIV emission lines in the quasar UV spectra. This part will exploit intermediate spectral resolution data from XSHOOTER already available to       our team (XQR-30 survey, XQ-100 survey) and archival high spectral resolution data from UVES/HIRES.
  • The characterisation of the quasar properties and in particular their far-infrared sub-mm to cm wave spectral energy distributions, to highlight the presence of radio jets. This part will exploit ALMA /NOEMA  data available to our team and from the archives, and LOFAR LOTSS DR2  data to detect ~150 MHz emission from the quasars. The presence of radio jets / cores will be then correlated with the detection of outflows in the ionized gas phase (see above). We verified that a fraction of 80% of our sample quasars are detected in LoTSS  Shimwell et al. 2022).
  • The galaxy overdensity around quasars through both associated absorption systems traced by high and low ionization transitions and line emitters       in the vicinity of the quasar. For the latter we will exploit FIR and sub-mm emission lines ([CII[ or CO) from ALMA/NOEMA data but also JWST       data from the GO ASPIRE and GTO EIGER programs (once they become public) which observe mainly [OIII] emitters.

The PhD student will work in close collaboration with members of the ANDES Science Working Group on Galaxies and the Intergalactic Medium on topics that pertain to the core science of the ELT ANDES spectrograph.  Samples that will be used: XQ-100 (XSHOOTER) , XQR-30 (XSHOOTER + ALMA + NOEMA), ASPIRE (XSHOOTER + JWST + ALMA + NOEMA), EIGER.