Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 445, Issue 1, Pages 280-289Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu1725
Keywords
galaxies: active; galaxies: high-redshift
Categories
Funding
- STFC through an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship
- ARC Future Fellowship
- South African SKA
- STFC [ST/K001051/1, ST/G004994/1, ST/L000695/1, ST/I001212/1, ST/J002844/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/G004994/1, ST/J002844/1, ST/L000695/1] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Distant powerful radio-loud active galactic nuclei (RLAGN) tend to reside in dense environments and are commonly found in protoclusters at z > 1.3. We examine whether this occurs because RLAGN are hosted by massive galaxies, which preferentially reside in rich environments. We compare the environments of powerful RLAGN at 1.3 < z < 3.2 from the Clusters Around Radio-Loud AGN survey to a sample of radio-quiet galaxies matched in mass and redshift. We find that the environments of RLAGN are significantly denser than those of radio-quiet galaxies, implying that not more than 50 per cent of massive galaxies in this epoch can host powerful radio-loud jets. This is not an observational selection effect as we find no evidence to suggest that it is easier to observe the radio emission when the galaxy resides in a dense environment. We therefore suggest that the dense Mpc-scale environment fosters the formation of a radio jet from an AGN. We show that the number density of potential RLAGN host galaxies is consistent with every >10(14) M-circle dot cluster having experienced powerful radio-loud feedback of duration similar to 60 Myr during 1.3 < z < 3.2. This feedback could heat the intracluster medium to the extent of 0.5-1 keV per gas particle, which could limit the amount of gas available for further star formation in the protocluster galaxies.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available