CaltechAUTHORS
Published July 10, 2011 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

The Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey: The Environments of High-z SDSS Quasi-stellar Objects

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon University of Hertfordshire
  • 2. ROR icon National Radio Astronomy Observatory
  • 3. ROR icon University of Sussex
  • 4. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 5. ROR icon University of Padua
  • 6. ROR icon University of Cambridge
  • 7. ROR icon University of Lisbon
  • 8. ROR icon Complutense University of Madrid
  • 9. ROR icon University College London

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the environments of SDSS quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) in the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS). We concentrate on the high-redshift QSOs as these have not been studied in large numbers with data of this depth before. We use the IRAC 3.6-4.5 μm color of objects and ancillary r-band data to filter out as much foreground contamination as possible. This technique allows us to find a significant (>4σ) overdensity of galaxies around QSOs in a redshift bin centered on z ~ 2.0 and an (>2σ) overdensity of galaxies around QSOs in a redshift bin centered on z ~ 3.3. We compare our findings to the predictions of a semi-analytic galaxy formation model, based on the ΛCDM MILLENNIUM simulation, and find for both redshift bins that the model predictions match well the source density we have measured from the SERVS data.

Additional Information

© 2011 American Astronomical Society. Received 2010 November 29; accepted 2011 April 22; published 2011 June 24. We thank the anonymous referee for comments that improved the paper. This work is based (in part) on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. J.T.F. thanks the Science and Technology Facilities Council for a research studentship. J.A. gratefully acknowledges the support from the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT, Portugal) through the research grant PTDC/FIS/100170/2008.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
24362
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20110711-113801387

Funding

NASA/JPL/Caltech
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)
PTDC/FIS/100170/2008

Dates

Created
2011-07-11
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-09
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)