Issue |
A&A
Volume 659, March 2022
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A79 | |
Number of page(s) | 28 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141400 | |
Published online | 10 March 2022 |
HARMONI view of the host galaxies of active galactic nuclei around cosmic noon
Resolved stellar morpho-kinematics and the MBH − σ⋆ relation
1
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, C/ Vía Láctea s/n, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
e-mail: begona.garcia@iac.es
2
Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
3
Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
4
Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Ctra. de Ajalvir, Km 4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain
5
Department of Physics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, University of Oxford, OX1 3RH Oxford, UK
6
Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
7
Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Received:
27
May
2021
Accepted:
22
November
2021
Context. The formation and evolution of galaxies appear linked to the growth of supermassive black holes, as evidenced by empirical scaling relations in nearby galaxies. Understanding this co-evolution over cosmic time requires the revelation of the dynamical state of galaxies and the measurement of the mass of their central black holes (MBH) at a range of cosmic distances. Bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are ideal for this purpose.
Aims. The High Angular Resolution Monolithic Optical and Near-infrared Integral field spectrograph (HARMONI), the first light integral-field spectrograph for the Extremely Large Telescope, will transform visible and near-infrared ground-based astrophysics thanks to its advances in sensitivity and angular resolution. We aim to analyse the capabilities of HARMONI to reveal the stellar morpho-kinematic properties of the host galaxies of AGNs at about cosmic noon.
Methods. We made use of the simulation pipeline for HARMONI (HSIM) to create mock observations of representative AGN host galaxies at redshifts around cosmic noon. We used observations taken with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer of nearby galaxies showing different morphologies and dynamical stages combined with theoretical AGN spectra to create the target inputs for HSIM.
Results. According to our simulations, an on-source integration time of three hours should be enough to measure the MBH and to trace the morphology and stellar kinematics of the brightest host galaxies of AGNs beyond cosmic noon. For host galaxies with stellar masses < 1011 M⊙, longer exposure times are mandatory to spatially resolve the stellar kinematics.
Key words: instrumentation: high angular resolution / instrumentation: spectrographs / quasars: general / galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
© ESO 2022
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