Symeonidis, M; (2017) What produces the far-infrared/submillimetre emission in the most luminous QSOs? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , 465 (2) pp. 1401-1408. 10.1093/mnras/stw2784.

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Abstract

The AGN. I examine the average spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of two samples of the most powerful, unobscured quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) at 2 < z < 3.5, with rest-frame optical luminosities in the range of 46.2 < log νLν (5100 Å) < 47.4, corresponding to the tail of the 2 < z < 4 QSO optical luminosity function. I find that the active galactic nucleus (AGN) could potentially account for the entire broad-band emission from the ultraviolet to the submillimetre (submm), on the basis that the SEDs of these sources are similar to the intrinsic AGN SEDs derived for lower power, lower redshift QSOs. Although this does not preclude substantial star formation in their host galaxies, I find that the AGN dominates the total infrared (IR) luminosity, removing the necessity for a star-forming component in the far-IR/submm. I argue that the origin of the far-IR/submm emission in such powerful QSOs includes a small contribution from the AGN torus but is predominantly linked to dust at kpc-scales heated by the AGN. The latter component accounts for at least 5–10 per cent of the bolometric AGN luminosity and has an implied dust mass of the order of 108 M⊙.

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