Institute for Astronomy, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
Science. 2010 Apr 30;328(5978):600-2. doi: 10.1126/science.1184246. Epub 2010 Mar 25.
Despite observed strong correlations between central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and star formation in galactic nuclei, uncertainties exist in our understanding of their coupling. We present observations of the ratio of heavily obscured to unobscured quasars as a function of cosmic epoch up to z congruent with 3 and show that a simple physical model describing mergers of massive, gas-rich galaxies matches these observations. In the context of this model, every obscured and unobscured quasar represents two distinct phases that result from a massive galaxy merger event. Much of the mass growth of the SMBH occurs during the heavily obscured phase. These observations provide additional evidence for a causal link between gas-rich galaxy mergers, accretion onto the nuclear SMBH, and coeval star formation.
尽管已经观察到星系核中心超大质量黑洞（SMBH）和恒星形成之间存在强烈的相关性，但我们对它们的耦合关系仍存在不确定性。我们展示了在宇宙时标 up to z congruent with 3 范围内，被严重遮挡的类星体与未被遮挡的类星体的比例的观测结果，并表明一个简单的物理模型，用于描述大质量、富含气体的星系的合并，与这些观测结果相符。在这个模型的背景下，每个被遮挡和未被遮挡的类星体都代表了两个不同的阶段，这是由一个大质量星系合并事件产生的。SMBH 的大部分质量增长发生在被严重遮挡的阶段。这些观测结果为富含气体的星系合并、对核 SMBH 的吸积以及同时发生的恒星形成之间的因果关系提供了额外的证据。
