Host Galaxies of Obscured Quasars: Infant Starbursts Caught in Action
Abstract
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the centers of massive galaxies are thought to predominantly grow in brief Eddington-rate quasar phases accompanied by starbursts, but on-going starbursts in luminous quasars are difficult to observe. Buried under the natural coronagraph, obscured quasars offer a unique window for direct, robust host-galaxy spectroscopy otherwise virtually inaccessible for luminous quasars. Our pilot study at z ~ 0.5 (Liu et al. 2009) revealed a substantial contribution from very young stellar populations with ages less than ~ 100 Myr in all of the observed host galaxy spectra. More dramatically, in three out of the nine SDSS quasars observed, we have witnessed strong infant starbursts with ages of ~ 5 Myr, clocked by the telltale Wolf-Rayet emission features.
- Publication:
-
Co-Evolution of Central Black Holes and Galaxies
- Pub Date:
- May 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S174392131000579X
- Bibcode:
- 2010IAUS..267..118L
- Keywords:
-
- galaxies: active;
- galaxies: evolution;
- galaxies: interactions;
- galaxies: nuclei;
- galaxies: starburst;
- galaxies: stellar content;
- quasars: general