The Connection Between Quasars and Starbursts

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Frank Bertoldi; Dr. Fabian Walter
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2005 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5449740

Recent observations have suggested a co-evolution of the centralsupermassive black holes and the stellar bulges in distantQSO host galaxies, consistent with the strong correlation ofboth components in local spheroids. (Sub)millimeter and radioobservations provide powerful means to investigate the starforming properties of high redshift galaxies. Through (restframe)far-infrared measurements of the warm dust spectralenergy distribution, and through observations of key gas tracers(CO, HCN, C, C+), we propose to continue our successfulprogram to investigate star formation and the dense gas in acarefully selected sample of QSOs. Such observations also constrainthe dynamical masses of these energetic systems, whichputs unique constraints on the early formation of galaxies.With submillimeter and radio continuum measurements we like todemonstrate decisively that star formation is the main energysource causing the observed far-IR emission in a large fractionof all QSOs, and that starbursts are an ubiquitous and coevalphenomena in QSOs. Submillimeter to radio observations of QSOsfurther provide us with a unique way to study the properties ofthe earliest galaxies, way back into the Epoch of Reionization(z>6).

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1177: Witnesses of Cosmic History: Formation and Evolution of Black Holes, Galaxies and Their Environments