| Description |
This is the second of a two part Herschel project to follow star formation (SF) in intervals of about 700 Myrs, in host galaxies of the most massive black holes (BHs). The first part, which includes 40 AGNs at z=4.8 (t(Universe)=1.2 Gyrs), has been granted time in OT1 and is already providing spectacular results:SFR as high as any observed before, including the most luminous SMGs, and L(SF) way above the prediction of the standard L(AGN)-L(SF) correlation.The present part focuses on the most luminous AGNs at z=2.4 and z=3.5. The z=3.5 group is a flux limited optical sample of the most luminous AGNs. The one at z=2.4 contains 42 BHs with known masses measured by the most reliable Hbeta-based method.The combination of the samples, that are likely to represent three stages in the evolution of the most massive BHs, will allow us to answer several fundamental questions related to the connection between SF and BH activity. 1. What are the relationships between L(AGN) and L(SF) at z=4.8, 3.5 and 2.4?2. What fraction of the hosts of the most luminous AGNs have already finished, or substantially reduced, their accumulation of stellar mass at every redshift?3. Can we infer the accumulation of stellar mass through the two periods of about 700 Myrs, and hence the SF duty cycle, assuming these sources will become the most massive galaxies in the local Universe? The z=2.4 sample will be observed with both PACS and SPIRE and the z=3.5 sample only with SPIRE. The total requested Herschel time is 46.4 hours. |
