Quasars, Starbursts, and the Cosmic Energy Budget.pdf

a r X i v : a s t r o - p h / 0 1 0 5 3 0 5 v 1 1 7 M a y 2 0 0 1 1 QUASARS, STARBURSTS, AND THE COSMIC ENERGY BUDGET A. Lawrence Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, Scotland, UK Abstract Observations in the far infrared are the best way to make an unbiased survey of active galaxies in the loosest sense - but separating the the true quasars from the sur- rounding starburst may be difficult. There is in fact much evidence to suggest that starburst and AGN activity are intimately connected, and FIRST will help us to explore this link. Since the last major FIRST conference in Greno- ble, this issue has become even more central to modern astrophysics, with the realisation of the dominance of the FIR background, the discovery of high redshift SCUBA sources, and the emergence of the black hole mass deficit problem. What dominates the cosmic energy budget - nu- clear fusion or accretion ? Key words: Cosmology:observations - Quasars:X-rays - Galax- ies:starburst - Galaxies:formation 1. Introduction The FIRST mission will make important contributions to AGN studies in several ways. Broad-band colours could be measured for hundreds of selected AGN of various types, including AGN at much higher redshift than previously possible. Spectral energy distributions could be measured for dozens of objects. Blazar monitoring could be per- formed at sub-mm wavelengths, measuring changes in the real core, rather than pc-scale jets. Very large numbers of submm selected AGN will come from the anticipated survey programmes. The issues addressed by such studies include AGN dust models, the starburst/AGN ratio, and its variation with luminosity, redshift, radio power etc, and the question of when dust first formed. The prospect for most of the above issues has not changed much since the last conference looking forward to FIRST, in Grenoble 1997. (Lawrence 1997). However the FIR emission from AGN has taken on a new cosmol