The Role of X-ray Luminous AGN in Quenching the Main Sequence
Abstract
We investigated a sample of 3259 luminous X-ray sources from the COSMOS2015 survey with redshift (z < 4) to determine if AGN activity quenches star-formation in galaxies. We produced new model-free estimates of star-formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass (M*) to which we then compared the position of the X-ray sources in the SFR - M* diagram with measurements of the galaxy "Main Sequence" (MS) from the literature. We found that star-formation rates derived from Ultraviolet (UV) to Near-infrared (NIR) SED-fitting tend to dramatically overestimate star-formation in X-ray sources. All X-ray sources, independent of spectral type, lie below the MS with SFR increasing as a function of M*. In addition, we found no correlation between offset in SFR from the MS (change in SFRMS) and X-ray luminosity (LX), but found that the median change in SFRMS decreases as a function of M*. We conclude that accurate measurements of SFR for luminous X-ray AGN are essential for determining the role of AGN activity in quenching star-formation.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #235
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AAS...23528307B