We study the physical mechanisms that cause the offset between low-redshift and high-redshift galaxies on the [OIII]/H$β$ versus [NII]/H$α$ ``Baldwin, Phillips & Terlevich'' (BPT) diagram using a sample of local analogues of high-redshift galaxies. These high-redshift analogue galaxies are selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Located in the same region on the BPT diagram as the ultra-violet selected galaxies at $z\sim2$, these high-redshift analogue galaxies provide an ideal local benchmark to study the offset between the local and high-redshift galaxies on the BPT diagram. We compare the nitrogen-to-oxygen ratio (N/O), the shape of the ionising radiation field, and ionisation parameters between the high-redshift analogues and a sample of local reference galaxies. The higher ionisation parameter in the high-redshift analogues is the dominant physical mechanism driving the BPT offset from low- to high-redshift, particularly at high {\nii/\ha}. Furthermore, the N/O ratio enhancement also plays a minor role to cause the BPT offset. However, the shape of the ionising radiation field is unlikely to cause the BPT offset because the high-redshift analogues have a similar hard ionising radiation field as local reference galaxies. This hard radiation field cannot be produced by the current standard stellar synthesis models. The stellar rotation and binarity may help solve the discrepancy.
When did galaxies start forming stars? What is the role of distant galaxies in galaxy formation models and the epoch of reionization? What are the conditions in typical star-forming galaxies at redshifts >~4? Why is galaxy evolution dependent on environment? The Spitzer Space Telescope has been a crucial tool for addressing these questions. Accurate knowledge of stellar masses, ages and star formation rates requires measuring rest-frame optical (and ultraviolet) light, which only Spitzer can probe at high redshifts for a sufficiently large sample of typical galaxies. Many of these science goal…
Much effort has been done in order to better understand the active galactic nuclei mechanisms behind the relativistic jets observed in radio-loud sources. These phenomena are commonly seen in luminous objects with intermediate/high redshift such as quasars, so that the analysis of the spectroscopic properties of these sources may be a way to clarify this issue. Measurements are presented and contextualized taking advantage of the set of correlations associated with the quasar Main Sequence (MS), a parameter space that allows to connect observed properties to the relative relevance of radiative…
One important result from recent large integral field spectrograph (IFS) surveys is that the intrinsic velocity dispersion of galaxies traced by star-forming gas increases with redshift. Massive, rotation-dominated discs are already in place at z~2, but they are dynamically hotter than spiral galaxies in the local Universe. Although several plausible mechanisms for this elevated velocity dispersion (e.g. star formation feedback, elevated gas supply, or more frequent galaxy interactions) have been proposed, the fundamental driver of the velocity dispersion enhancement at high redshift remains u…
Correlations between black holes and their host galaxies provide insight into what drives black hole-host co-evolution. We use the Meraxes semi-analytic model to investigate the growth of black holes and their host galaxies from high redshift to the present day. Our modelling finds no significant evolution in the black hole-bulge and black hole-total stellar mass relations out to a redshift of 8. The black hole-total stellar mass relation has similar but slightly larger scatter than the black hole-bulge relation, with the scatter in both decreasing with increasing redshift. In our modelling th…
We explore the structures of protoclusters and their relationship with high redshift clusters using the Millennium Simulation combined with a semi-analytic model. We find that protoclusters are very extended, with 90 per cent of their mass spread across $\sim35\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ comoving at $z=2$ ($\sim30\, \rm{arcmin}$). The `main halo', which can manifest as a high redshift cluster or group, is only a minor feature of the protocluster, containing less than 20 per cent of all protocluster galaxies at $z=2$. Furthermore, many protoclusters do not contain a main halo that is massive enough to b…
The quasar mode of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the high-redshift Universe is routinely observed in gas-rich galaxies together with large-scale AGN-driven winds. It is crucial to understand how photons emitted by the central AGN source couple to the ambient interstellar-medium to trigger large-scale outflows. By means of radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of idealised galactic discs, we study the coupling of photons with the multiphase galactic gas, and how it varies with gas cloud sizes, and the radiation bands included in the simulations, which are ultraviolet (UV), optical, and infrare…
Both numerical hydrodynamic and semi-analytic cosmological models of galaxy formation struggle to match observed star formation histories of galaxies in low mass halos (M$_{\rm{H}} \lesssim 10^{11} M_\odot$), predicting more star formation at high redshift and less star formation at low redshift than observed. The fundamental problem is that galaxies' gas accretion and star formation rates are too closely coupled in the models: the accretion rate largely drives the star formation rate. Observations point to gas accretion rates that outpace star formation at high redshift, resulting in a buildu…
The Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature (EDGES) recently reported a strong 21-cm absorption signal relative to the cosmic microwave background at $z \sim 18$. While its anomalous amplitude may indicate new physics, in this work we focus on the timing of the signal, as it alone provides an important constraint on galaxy formation models. Whereas rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity functions (UVLFs) over a broad range of redshifts are well fit by simple models in which galaxy star formation histories track the assembly of dark matter halos, we find that these same model…
Energetic feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) is an important ingredient for regulating the star-formation history of galaxies in models of galaxy formation, which makes it important to study how AGN feedback actually occurs in practice. In order to catch AGNs in the act of quenching star formation we have used the interstellar NaD absorption lines to look for cold-gas outflows in a sample of 456 nearby galaxies for which we could unambigously ascertain the presence of radio AGN activity, thanks to radio imaging at milli-arcsecond scales. While compact radio emission indicating a radio …
We discuss observations of CII*/CII ratios and cooling rates due to [CII]$\,$158$μ$m emission in high-redshift intervening damped Lyman-$α$ systems towards quasars. We show that the observed bimodality in the CII cooling rates actually reflects a bimodality in the CII*/CII-metallicity plane that can be naturally explained by phase segregation of the neutral medium, without invoking differences in star-formation scenarios. Assuming realistic distributions of the physical parameters to calculate the phase diagrams, we also reproduce qualitatively the metallicity dependence of this bimodality. We…
To explore the connection between the global physical properties of galaxies and their far-infrared (FIR) spectral energy distributions (SEDs), we study the variation in the FIR SEDs of a set of hydrodynamically simulated galaxies that are generated by performing dust radiative transfer in post-processing. Our sample includes both isolated and merging systems at various stages of the merging process and covers infrared (IR) luminosities and dust masses that are representative of both low- and high-redshift galaxies. We study the FIR SEDs using principle component analysis (PCA) and find that 9…
[Oiii]λλ4959,5007 "blue outliers" -- that are suggestive of outflows in the narrow line region of quasars -- appear to be much more common at intermediate z (high luminosity) than at low z. About 40% of quasars in a Hamburg ESO intermediate-z sample of 52 sources qualify as blue outliers (i.e., quasars with [OIII] λλ4959,5007 lines showing large systematic blueshifts with respect to rest frame). We discuss major findings on what has become an intriguing field in active galactic nuclei research and stress the relevance of blue outliers to feedback and host galaxy evolution.
We present semi-analytical models of galactic outflows in high redshift galaxies driven by both hot thermal gas and non-thermal cosmic rays. Thermal pressure alone may not sustain a large scale outflow in low mass galaxies (i.e $M\sim 10^8$~M$_\odot$), in the presence of supernovae (SNe) feedback with large mass loading. We show that inclusion of cosmic ray pressure allows outflow solutions even in these galaxies. In massive galaxies for the same energy efficiency, cosmic ray driven winds can propagate to larger distances compared to pure thermally driven winds. On an average gas in the cosmic…
The THESAN-ZOOM project: Burst, quench, repeat -- unveiling the evolution of high-redshift galaxies along the star-forming main sequence
Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge（卡弗里宇宙学研究所，剑桥大学）；Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge（卡文迪许实验室，剑桥大学）；Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Dallas（德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校物理系）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University（约克大学物理与天文系）；Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam（波茨坦阿斯特拉诺伊克莱布尼茨研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学物理与天文系）；Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo（东京大学 Kavli 宇宙物理学与数学起源联合研究中心（WPI），UTIAS）；Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe（宇宙基本物理研究所）；Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学天文学研究所）
We trace the evolution and the star formation history of passive galaxies, using a subset of the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). We extracted from the VIPERS survey a sample of passive galaxies in the redshift range 0.4<z<1.0 and stellar mass range 10<$log(M_{star}/M_{\odot})$<12. The sample was selected using an evolving cut in the rest-frame U-V color distribution and additional quality-ensuring cuts. We use the stacked spectra to measure the 4000$Å$ break (D4000) and the $Hδ$ Lick index ($Hδ_{A}$) with high precision. We compare the results with a grid of synthetic spec…
We study galaxy mass assembly and cosmic star formation rate (SFR) at high-redshift (z$\gt$4), by comparing data from multiwavelength surveys with predictions from the GAlaxy Evolution and Assembly (GAEA) model. GAEA implements a stellar feedback scheme partially based on cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, that features strong stellar driven outflows and mass-dependent timescale for the re-accretion of ejected gas. In previous work, we have shown that this scheme is able to correctly reproduce the evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function (GSMF) up to $z\sim3$. We contrast model pred…
I review the current understanding of some key properties of the earliest growing supermassive black holes (SMBHs), as determined from the most up-to-date observations of z>=5 quasars. This includes their accretion rates and growth history, their host galaxies, and the large-scale environments that enabled their emergence less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The available multi-wavelength data show that these SMBHs are consistent with Eddington-limited, radiatively efficient accretion that had to proceed almost continuously since very early epochs. ALMA observations of the hosts' ISM …
We study a sample of 17 z>1.5 absorbers selected based on the presence of strong CI absorption lines in SDSS spectra and observed with the ESO-VLT spectrograph X-shooter. We derive metallicities, depletion onto dust, and extinction by dust, and analyse the absorption from MgII, MgI, CaII and NaI that are redshifted into the near infrared wavelength range. We show that most of these CI absorbers have high metallicity and dust content. We detect nine CaII absorptions with $W$(CaII$λ$3934) >0.23 Åout of 14 systems where we have appropriate wavelength coverage. The observed equivalent widths are s…
We investigate the median flattening of galaxies at $0.2<z<4.0$ in all five CANDELS/3D-HST fields via the apparent axis ratio $q$. We separate the sample into bins of redshift, stellar-mass, sérsic index, size, and UVJ determined star-forming state to discover the most important drivers of the median $q$ ($q_{med}$). Quiescent galaxies at $z<1$ and $M_{*}>10^{11}M_{\odot}$ are rounder than those at lower masses, consistent with the hypothesis that they have grown significantly through dry merging. The massive quiescent galaxies at higher redshift become flatter, and are as flat as star forming…
Dust and Grain Size Evolution in Galaxy Simulations: What Matters and What Does Not
University of Florida（佛罗里达大学）；Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen and DTU-Space, Technical University of Denmark（哥本哈根大学尼尔斯·玻尔研究所和丹麦技术大学空间科学中心）；University of Virginia（弗吉尼亚大学）
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope will open up a new window for observations at the highest redshifts, reaching out to z~15. However, even with this new facility, the first stars will remain out of reach, as they are born in small minihalos with luminosities too faint to be detected even by the longest exposure times. In this paper, we investigate the basic properties of the Ultimately Large Telescope, a facility that can detect Population III star formation regions at high redshift. Observations will take place in the near-infrared and therefore a moon-based facility is proposed. A…
We study winds in high redshift galaxies driven by a relativistic cosmic ray (proton) component in addition to the hot thermal gas component. Cosmic rays (CRs) are likely to be efficiently generated in supernova shocks inside galaxies. We obtain solutions of such CR driven free winds in a gravitational potential of the NFW form, relevant to galaxies. Cosmic rays naturally provide the extra energy and/or momentum input to the system, needed for a transonic wind solution in a gas with adiabatic index $γ=5/3$. We show that CRs can effectively drive winds even when the thermal energy of the gas is…
Massive black holes (BHs) are at once exotic and yet ubiquitous, residing in the centers of massive galaxies in the local Universe. Recent years have seen remarkable advances in our understanding of how these BHs form and grow over cosmic time, during which they are revealed as active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, despite decades of research, we still lack a coherent picture of the physical drivers of BH growth, the connection between the growth of BHs and their host galaxies, the role of large-scale environment on the fueling of BHs, and the impact of BH-driven outflows on the growth of gal…
Observations of quasar absorption line systems reveal that the z=3 intergalactic medium (IGM) is polluted by heavy elements down to HI optical depths tau_HI<<10. What is not yet clear, however, is what fraction of the volume needs to be enriched by metals and whether it suffices to enrich only regions close to galaxies in order to reproduce the observations. We use gas density fields derived from large cosmological simulations, together with synthetic quasar spectra and imposed, model metal distributions to investigate what enrichment patterns can reproduce the observed median optical depth of…
We present simulations of the magnetized interstellar medium (ISM) in models of massive star forming (40 Msun / yr) disk galaxies with high gas surface densities (~100 Msun / pc^2) similar to observed star forming high-redshift disks. We assume that type II supernovae deposit 10 per cent of their energy into the ISM as cosmic rays and neglect the additional deposition of thermal energy or momentum. With a typical Galactic diffusion coefficient for CRs (3e28 cm^2 / s) we demonstrate that this process alone can trigger the local formation of a strong low density galactic wind maintaining vertica…
Motivated by Genzel et al.'s observations of high-redshift star-forming galaxies, containing clumpy and turbulent rings or disks, we build a set of equations describing the dynamical evolution of gaseous disks with inclusion of star formation and its feedback. Transport of angular momentum is due to "turbulent" viscosity induced by supernova explosions in the star formation region. Analytical solutions of the equations are found for the initial cases of a gaseous ring and the integrated form for a gaseous disk, respectively. For a ring with enough low viscosity, it evolves in a slow processes …
We study outflows driven by Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) using high- resolution simulations of idealized z=2 isolated disk galaxies. Episodic accretion events lead to outflows with velocities >1000 km/s and mass outflow rates up to the star formation rate (several tens of Msun/yr). Outflowing winds escape perpendicular to the disk with wide opening angles, and are typically asymmetric (i.e. unipolar) because dense gas above or below the AGN in the resolved disk inhibits outflow. Owing to rapid variability in the accretion rates, outflowing gas may be detectable even when the AGN is effectivel…
We present a novel scenario for the growth of dust grains in galaxies at high-redshift ($z\sim 6$). In our model, the mechanical feedback from massive star clusters evolving within high-density pre-enriched media allows to pile-up a large amount of matter into massive supershells. If the gas metallicity ($\geq$ Z$_{\odot}$), number density ($\geq 10^6$ cm$^{-3}$) and dust-to-gas mass ratio ($\sim 1/150 \times Z$) within the supershell are sufficiently large, such supershells may become optically thick to the starlight emerging from their host star clusters and even to radiation from the Cosmic…
We present the first results from the KMOS AGN Survey at High redshift (KASHz), a VLT/KMOS integral-field spectroscopic survey of z>0.6 AGN. We present galaxy-integrated spectra of 89 X-ray AGN (Lx=10^42-10^45 erg/s), for which we observed [O III] (z=1.1-1.7) or Halpha emission (z=0.6-1.1). The targets have X-ray luminosities representative of the parent AGN population and we explore the emission-line luminosities as a function of X-ray luminosity. For the [O III] targets, ~50 per cent have ionised gas velocities indicative of gas that is dominated by outflows and/or highly turbulent material …
The role of disk instabilities, such as bars and spiral arms, and the associated resonances, in growing bulges in the inner regions of disk galaxies have long been studied in the low-redshift nearby Universe. There it has long been probed observationally, in particular through peanut-shaped bulges. This secular growth of bulges in modern disk galaxies is driven by weak, non-axisymmetric instabilities: it mostly produces pseudo-bulges at slow rates and with long star-formation timescales. Disk instabilities at high redshift (z>1) in moderate-mass to massive galaxies (10^10 to a few 10^11 Msun o…
Herschel has opened new windows into studying the evolution of rapidly star-forming galaxies out to high redshifts. Today's massive starbursts are characterized by star formation rates (SFRs) of 100+ Mo/yr and display a chaotic morphology and nucleated star formation indicative of a major merger. At z~2, galaxies of similar mass and SFR are characterized by ordered rotation and distributed star formation. The emerging cold accretion paradigm provides an intuitive understanding for such differences. In it, halo accretion rates govern the supply of gas into star-forming regions, modulated by str…
In order to determine what processes govern the assembly history of galaxies with rotating disks, we examine the stellar mass Tully-Fisher relation over a wide range in redshift partitioned according to whether or not galaxies contain a prominent bulge. Using our earlier Keck spectroscopic sample, for which bulge/total parameters are available from analyses of HST images, we find that bulgeless disk galaxies with z > 0.8 present a significant offset from the local Tully-Fisher relation whereas, at all redshifts probed, those with significant bulges fall along the local relation. Our results su…
We employ the Delphi semi-analytical model to study the impact of black hole growth on high-redshift galaxies, both in terms of the observed UV luminosity and of the star formation rate. To do this, firstly, we assess the contribution of AGN to the total galaxy UV luminosity as a function of stellar mass and redshift. We find that for $M_{UV} < -24$ mag and $z \approx 5 - 6$ the galaxies for which the black hole UV luminosity outshines the stellar UV emission become the majority, and we estimate their duty cycle. Secondly, we study the evolution of the AGN and stellar luminosity functions (LFs…
Feedback from outflows driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) can affect the distribution and properties of the gaseous halos of galaxies. We study the hydrodynamics and non-thermal emission from the forward outflow shock produced by an AGN-driven outflow. We consider a few possible profiles for the halo gas density, self-consistently constrained by the halo mass, redshift and the disk baryonic concentration of the galaxy. We show that the outflow velocity levels off at $\sim 10^3\,\rm km\, s^{-1}$ within the scale of the galaxy disk. Typically, the outflow can reach the virial radius around t…
Lyman alpha blobs (LABs) are spatially extended lyman alpha nebulae seen at high redshift. The origin of Lyman alpha emission in the LABs is still unclear and under debate. To study their heating mechanism(s), we present Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) observations of the 20 cm radio emission and Herschel PACS and SPIRE measurements of the far-infrared (FIR) emission towards the four LABs in the protocluster J2143-4423 at z=2.38. Among the four LABs, B6 and B7 are detected in the radio with fluxes of 67+/-17 microJy and 77+/-16 microJy, respectively, and B5 is marginally detected at 3…
At fixed stellar mass $M_*$, the effective radius $R_{\rm e}$ of massive satellite early-type galaxies (ETGs) in galaxy clusters is, on average, larger at lower redshift. We study theoretically this size evolution using the state-of-the-art cosmological simulation IllustrisTNG100: we sampled $75$ simulated satellite ETGs at redshift $z=0$ with $M_* \ge 10^{10.4} M_{\odot}$ belonging to the two most massive ($\approx 10^{14.6} M_{\odot} $) haloes of the simulation. We traced back in time the two clusters' main progenitors and we selected their satellite ETGs at $z>0$ with the same criterion ado…
Megahertz peaked-spectrum (MPS) sources have spectra that peak at frequencies below 1 GHz in the observer's frame and are believed to be radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN). We recently presented a new method to search for high-redshift AGN by identifying unusually compact MPS sources. In this paper, we present European VLBI Network (EVN) observations of 11 MPS sources which we use to determine their sizes and investigate the nature of the sources with ~10 mas resolution. Of the 11 sources, we detect nine with the EVN. Combining the EVN observations with spectral and redshift information, …
