The Host Galaxies of X-Ray Quasars are Not Strong Star Formers

Abstract

We use ultradeep SCUBA-2 850 μm observations (∼0.37 mJy rms) of the 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field-North (CDF-N) and 4 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South X-ray fields to examine the amount of dusty star formation taking place in the host galaxies of high-redshift X-ray active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Supplementing with COSMOS, we measure the submillimeter fluxes of the 4-8 keV sources at z\gt 1, finding little flux at the highest X-ray luminosities but significant flux at intermediate luminosities. We determine graybody and MIR luminosities by fitting spectral energy distributions to each X-ray source and to each radio source in an ultradeep Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) 1.4 GHz (11.5 μJy at 5σ ) image of the CDF-N. We confirm the far-infrared (FIR)-radio and mid-infrared (MIR)-radio correlations to z = 4 using the non-X-ray detected radio sources. Both correlations are also obeyed by the X-ray less luminous AGNs but not by the X-ray quasars. We interpret the low FIR luminosities relative to the MIR for the X-ray quasars as being due to a lack of star formation, while the MIR stays high due to the AGN contribution. We find that the FIR luminosity distributions are highly skewed and the means are dominated by a small number of high-luminosity galaxies. Thus, stacking or averaging analyses will overestimate the level of star formation taking place in the bulk of the X-ray sample. We conclude that most of the host galaxies of X-ray quasars are not strong star formers, perhaps because their star formation is suppressed by AGN feedback.

Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.