Broadband spectral energy distributions of SDSS-selected quasars and of their host galaxies: intense activity at the onset of AGN feedback

Abstract

We present the mean spectral energy distribution (SED) of a sample of optically selected quasars (QSOs) at redshifts of $1\le z\le 5$. To derive it, we exploit photometric information from SDSS, UKIDSS, and WISE surveys in combination with a stacking analysis of \textit{Herschel}, \textit{AKARI}, and \textit{Planck} maps at the location of the QSOs. The near-UV and optical parts of the reconstructed mean rest-frame SED are similar to those found in other studies. However, the SED shows an excess at 1-2 $\mu$m (when compared to the aforementioned SEDs normalized in the near-UV) and a prominent bump around 4-6 $\mu$m, followed by a decrease out to $\sim 20\mu$m and a subsequent far-IR bump. From the fitted SEDs we estimate the average active galactic nuclei (AGN) luminosity $L_{\mathrm{AGN}}$ and star formation rate (SFR) as function of cosmic time, finding typical $L_{\mathrm{AGN}}\sim 10^{46}-10^{47}$ erg/s and SFR $\sim 50-1000M_{\odot }/$yr. We develop mid-IR based criteria to split the QSO sample, finding that these allow us to move along the average relationship in the SFR vs. $L_{\mathrm{AGN}}$ diagram toward increasing AGN luminosities. When interpreted in the context of the in-situ coevolution scenario presented by Lapi et al. 2014, our results suggest that the detection in the far-IR band is an effective criterion to select objects where the star formation is on the verge of being affected by energy/momentum feedback from the central AGN.

23 pages, 9 figures, text updated to match the accepted version, ApJ in press

References in corpus (23)

• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• Cosmic Star Formation History
• Binary companions of evolved stars in APOGEE DR14: Search method and catalog of ~5,000 companions
• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• Massive molecular outflows and negative feedback in ULIRGs observed by Herschel-PACS
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: twelfth data release
• 350 Micron Dust Emission from High Redshift Quasars
• The Herschel-ATLAS Data Release 1 Paper I: Maps, Catalogues and Number Counts
• The Most Luminous Galaxies Discovered by WISE
• Dust emission in an accretion-rate-limited sample of z>6 quasars
• Galaxy Evolution in the Radio Band: The Role of Starforming Galaxies and Active Galactic Nuclei
• The $AKARI$ Far-Infrared All-Sky Survey Maps
• The mean star formation rates of unobscured QSOs: searching for evidence of suppressed or enhanced star formation
• The Herschel-ATLAS Data Release 1 Paper II: Multi-wavelength counterparts to submillimetre sources
• Dust-Deficient Palomar-Green Quasars and the Diversity of AGN Intrinsic IR Emission
• Herschel-ATLAS: Far-infrared properties of radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars
• Intrinsic AGN SED & black hole growth in the Palomar--Green quasars
• Measuring AGN Feedback with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect
• Detection of Quasar Feedback from the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect in Planck
• The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect from Quasar Feedback
• Comparing Simple Quasar Demographics Models
• Starbursts and dusty tori in distant 3CR radio galaxies
• Downsizing of Star Formation Measured from the Clustered Infrared Background Correlated with Quasars

Cited by in corpus (15)

• Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshift are Expected to be Obscured by their Massive Host Galaxies' Inter Stellar Medium
• Quantifying the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect and Excess Millimeter Emission in Quasar Environments
• Unveiling the nature of 11 dusty star-forming galaxies at the peak of cosmic star formation history
• The WISSH quasars project XI. The mean Spectral Energy Distribution and Bolometric Corrections of the most luminous quasars
• X-ray properties and obscured fraction of AGN in the J1030 Chandra field
• An ALMA view of 11 Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at the peak of Cosmic Star Formation History
• QSO photometric redshifts from SDSS, WISE and GALEX colours
• The Black Hole Mass Function Across Cosmic Times II. Heavy Seeds and (Super)Massive Black Holes
• QSOs sigposting cluster size halos as gravitational lenses: halo mass, projected mass density profile and concentration at $z\sim 0.7$
• Quasi-stellar objects and galaxy mass density profiles derived using the submillimetre galaxies magnification bias
• The star-formation rates of QSOs
• Galaxy cluster mass density profile derived using the submillimetre galaxies magnification bias
• The near-infrared SED of blue quasars: what drives the evolution of the dusty torus?
• The probabilistic random forest applied to the QUBRICS survey: improving the selection of high-redshift quasars with synthetic data
• The Quasar Candidates Catalogs of DESI Legacy Imaging Survey Data Release 9