The AGN-Starburst Connection traced by the Nitrogen Abundance

  • Matsuoka, Kenta (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Nagao, Tohru (Research Center for Space and Cosmic Evolution, Ehime University) ;
  • Marconi, Alessandro (Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universita degli Studi di Firenze) ;
  • Maiolino, Roberto (Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge) ;
  • Park, Daeseong (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California) ;
  • Woo, Jong-Hak (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Shin, Jaejin (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Ikeda, Hiroyuki (Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ehime University) ;
  • Taniguchi, Yoshiaki (Research Center for Space and Cosmic Evolution, Ehime University)
  • Published : 2014.04.10

Abstract

The connection between the active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and star formation activity is one of the most important issues in understanding the coevolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and galaxies. In our recent study, by using SDSS quasar spectra we found that the emission-line flux rations involving a nitrogen line, i.e., $NV{\lambda}1240$, correlate with the Eddington ratio. This correlation suggests that the mass accretion into SMBH is associated with a post-starburst phase, when AGB stars enrich the interstellar medium with the nitrogen. Moreover, we focused on nitrogen-loud quasars, which have prominent emission lines of the nitrogen, to investigate whether this argument is correct or not. We will present our recent results described above and discuss the relation between the star formation and feeding to SMBHs.

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