Super

Abstract

Theoretical models of galaxy formation suggest that the presence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) is required to regulate the growth of its host galaxy through feedback mechanisms, produced by, for example, AGN-driven outflows. Although many observational studies have revealed that such outflows are common both at low and high redshift, a comprehensive picture is still missing. In particular, the peak epoch of galaxy assembly (1 < z < 3) has been poorly explored so far, and current observations in this redshift range are mostly limited to targets with high chances to be in an outflowing phase. This paper introduces SUPER (a SINFONI Survey for Unveiling the Physics and Effect of Radiative feedback), an ongoing ESO's VLT/SINFONI Large Programme. SUPER will perform the first systematic investigation of ionized outflows in a sizeable and blindly-selected sample of 39 X-ray AGN at z ∼ 2, which reaches high spatial resolutions (∼2 kpc) thanks to the adaptive optics-assisted IFS observations. The outflow morphology and star formation in the host galaxy will be mapped through the broad component of [O iii]λ5007 and the narrow component of Hα emission lines. The main aim of our survey is to infer the impact of outflows on the on-going star formation and to link the outflow properties to a number of AGN and host galaxy properties. We describe here the survey characteristics and goals, as well as the selection of the target sample. Moreover, we present a full characterization of its multi-wavelength properties: we measure, via spectral energy distribution fitting of UV-to-FIR photometry, stellar masses (4 × 10 9 −2 × 10 11 M ), star formation rates (25−680 M yr −1 ) and AGN bolometric luminosities (2 × 10 44 −8 × 10 47 erg s −1 ), along with obscuring column densities (up to 2 × 10 24 cm −2 ) and luminosities in the hard 2−10 keV band (2 × 10 43 −6 × 10 45 erg s −1 ) derived through X-ray spectral analysis. Finally, we classify our AGN as jetted or non-jetted according to their radio and FIR emission.

CO emission in distant galaxies on and above the main sequence

“…3.6 of this work, V18, and V20 for detailed references for the SMG population. of emission from the active nuclei across the various bands as detailed in Circosta et al (2018). While this provided us with a more robust estimate of the stellar masses in presence of strong AGN, we did not find any significant offset between M from CIGALE and the COSMOS catalogs for the rest of the sample.…”

KASHz: No evidence for ionised outflows instantaneously suppressing star formation in moderate luminosity AGN at z ∼ 1.4–2.6

“…KASHz is a systematic integral field spectroscopy survey designed to spatially-resolve the rest-frame optical emission lines of ≈250 X-ray selected AGN, that are representative of the distant (z =0.6-2.6) AGN population. KASHz has the benefit of characterising the ionised gas properties of typical distant X-ray AGN and can be used to place into context other studies based on smaller numbers of targets, such as higher spatial-resolution (AO-assisted) integral field unit (IFU) observations (e.g., SUPER survey, see Circosta et al 2018). By combining multi-wavelength photometry from UV-submm we can characterise the star-formation rates, AGN luminosities and stellar masses of the sample, and explore the ionised gas properties, such as the prevalence of outflows, as a function of various AGN and host galaxy properties.…”

The impact of AGN on the life of their host galaxies at z ∼ 2

“…AGN feedback in action in this target could be depleting the molecular gas reservoir. As for our sample, we are performing a systematic investigation of the ionized gas phase with SINFONI at the ESO's Very Large Telescope as part of the SINFONI Survey for Unveiling the Physics and Effect of Radiative feedback (SUPER; Circosta et al 2018). These data, available for 19 out of 25 targets, will reveal the presence of outflows.…”

“…The sample of 25 AGN was drawn from the COSMOS-Legacy survey (Civano et al 2016;Marchesi et al 2016) and the wide-area XMM-Newton XXL survey North (Menzel et al 2016;Pierre et al 2016), by selecting targets with an absorption-corrected X-ray luminosity L X 10 42 erg s −1 and secure spectroscopic redshift in the range z = 2.0 − 2.5. We followed Circosta et al (2018) to collect the multi-wavelength data spanning from the X-rays to the radio regime and derive the properties of the targets through X-ray spectral analysis and broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting (e.g., stellar mass, SFR, bolometric and X-ray luminosities, obscuring column densities).…”