[55.11] GOODS Evidence for Black Hole-Bulge Correlation and against Merger-AGN Connection at $0.4 < z

AAS 203rd Meeting, January 2004
Session 55 AGN and Starburst Galaxies
Poster, Tuesday, January 6, 2004, 9:20am-6:30pm, Grand Hall

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[55.11] GOODS Evidence for Black Hole-Bulge Correlation and against Merger-AGN Connection at 0.4 < z < 1.3

N. A. Grogin (JHU), C. J. Conselice (CalTech), E. Chatzichristou (Yale), D. M. Alexander, F. E. Bauer (IoA), A. E. Hornschemeier (JHU), S. Jogee, A. M. Koekemoer, V. G. Laidler, M. Livio, R. A. Lucas, M. Paolillo, S. Ravindranath (STScI), E. J. Schreier (AUI,STScI), B. D. Simmons, C. M. Urry (Yale), GOODS Team

We investigate morphological structure parameters and local environments of distant moderate-luminosity AGN host galaxies in the overlap region between the HST/ACS observations of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS/ACS) and the two Chandra Deep Fields. We compute asymmetry and concentration indices and near-neighbor counts for ~34000 GOODS/ACS galaxies, including ~350 X-ray-selected AGN hosts.

Both the near-neighbor counts and the z₈₅₀ asymmetries of the 233 resolved, z₈₅₀<23 AGN host galaxies are consistent with the field values, implying no close connection between galaxy mergers and moderate-luminosity AGN activity out to appreciable lookback times (z <~ 1.3) approaching the epoch of peak AGN activity in the universe. The z₈₅₀ concentration indices for the AGN hosts are clearly skewed towards larger values; this 7-sigma discrepancy is much larger than could be explained by the contribution of the nuclear point source to the hosts' optical emission. From this we infer that the tight correlation observed locally between supermassive central black hole mass and host galaxy properties (including concentration index) persists to the substantial redshifts of our AGN and control samples.

The multicolor GOODS/ACS imaging allows us to track the comparative evolution of these morphological and environmental indicators in rest-frame B-band out to z~1.3 using volume-limited samples constructed from AGN redshifts in the literature and ~10000 GOODS/ACS field galaxy photometric redshifts. The results described above for z₈₅₀ also hold for rest-frame B-band in each of three redshift intervals spanning 0.4 < z < 1.3.

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