We present Herschel (PACS and SPIRE) far-infrared (FIR) photometry of a complete sample of z > 1 3CR sources, from the Herschel guaranteed time project The Herschel Legacy of distant radio-loud AGN. Combining these with existing Spitzer photometric data, we perform an infrared (IR) spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis of these landmark objects in extragalactic research to study the star formation in the hosts of some of the brightest active galactic nuclei (AGN) known at any epoch. Accounting for the contribution from an AGN-powered warm dust component to the IR SED, about 40% of our objects undergo episodes of prodigious, ULIRGstrength star formation, with rates of hundreds of solar masses per year, coeval with the growth of the central supermassive black hole. Median SEDs imply that the quasar and radio galaxy hosts have similar FIR properties, in agreement with the orientationbased unification for radio-loud AGN. The star-forming properties of the AGN hosts are similar to those of the general population of equally massive non-AGN galaxies at comparable redshifts, thus there is no strong evidence of universal quenching of star formation (negative feedback) within this sample. Massive galaxies at high redshift may be forming stars prodigiously, regardless of whether their supermassive black holes are accreting or not.
Using the Herschel Space Observatory we have observed a representative sample of 87 powerful 3CR sources at redshift z < 1. The far-infrared (FIR, 70-500 µm) photometry is combined with mid-infrared (MIR) photometry from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and catalogued data to analyse the complete spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of each object from optical to radio wavelength. To disentangle the contributions of different components, the SEDs are fitted with a set of templates to derive the luminosities of host galaxy starlight, dust torus emission powered by active galactic nuclei (AGN) and cool dust heated by stars. The level of emission from relativistic jets is also estimated, in order to isolate the thermal host galaxy contribution. The new data are in line with the orientation-based unification of highexcitation radio-loud AGN, in that the dust torus becomes optically thin longwards of 30 µm. The low excitation radio galaxies and the MIR weak sources represent MIR-and FIR-faint AGN population different from the high-excitation MIR-bright objects; it remains an open question whether they are at a later evolutionary state or an intrinsically different population. The derived luminosities for host starlight and dust heated by star formation are converted to stellar masses and star formation rates (SFR). The host-normalized SFR of the bulk of the 3CR sources is low when compared to other galaxy populations at the same epoch. Estimates of the dust mass yield a 1-100 times lower dust/stellar mass ratio than for the Milky Way, indicating that these 3CR hosts have very low levels of interstellar matter explaining the low level of star formation. Less than 10% of the 3CR sources show levels of star formation above those of the main sequence of star forming galaxies.
We present a study of the complete ultraviolet to submillimetre spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of twelve 3CR radio galaxy hosts in the redshift range 1.0 < z < 2.5, which were all detected in the far-infrared by the Herschel Space Observatory. The study employs the new spectro-chemical evolutionary code Pégase.3, in combination with recently published clumpy AGN torus models. We uncover the properties of the massive host galaxy stellar populations, the AGN torus luminosities, and the properties of the recent starbursts, which had earlier been inferred in these objects from their infrared SEDs. The Pégase.3 fitting yields very luminous (up to 10 13 L ) young stellar populations with ages of several hundred million years in hosts with masses exceeding 10 11 M . Dust masses are seen to increase with redshift, and a surprising correlation -or better upper envelope behaviour -is found between the AGN torus luminosity and the starburst luminosity, as revealed by their associated dust components. The latter consistently exceeds the former by a constant factor, over a range of one order of magnitude in both quantities.
During five decades astronomers have been puzzled by the presence of strong absorption features including metal lines, observed in the optical and ultraviolet spectra of quasars, signalling in-and outflowing gas winds with relative velocities up to several thousands of km/sec. In particular the location of these winds -close to the quasar, further out in its host galaxy, or in its direct environment -and the possible impact on their surroundings have been issues of intense discussion and uncertainty. Using our Herschel Space Observatory 1 data, we report a tendency for this so-called associated metal absorption to occur along with prodigious star formation in the quasar host galaxy, indicating that the two phenomena are likely to be interrelated, that the gas winds likely occur on the kiloparsec scale and would then have a strong impact on the interstellar medium of the galaxy. This correlation moreover would imply that the unusually high cold dust luminosities in these quasars are connected with ongoing star formation. Given that we find no correlation with the AGN strength, the wind feedback which we establish in these radio-loud objects is most likely associated with their host star formation rather than with their black hole accretion.
The unification model for powerful radio galaxies (RGs) and radio-loud quasars postulates that these objects are intrinsically the same but viewed along different angles. Herschel Space Observatory data permit the assessment of that model in the far-infrared spectral window. We analyze photometry from Spitzer and Herschel for the distant 3CR hosts, and find that RGs and quasars have different mid-infrared, but indistinguishable far-infrared colors. Both these properties, the former being orientation dependent and the latter orientation invariant, are in line with expectations from the unification model. Adding powerful radio-quiet active galaxies and typical massive starforming (SF) galaxies to the analysis, we demonstrate that infrared colors not only provide an orientation indicator, but can also distinguish active from SF galaxies.
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