ERQs are the BOSS of Red Quasar Samples
Serena Perrotta (University of California)
Tuesday 15/01/2019 @ 14:00, Sala IV piano Battiferro
In the last decade the potential impact of galaxy-scale outflows driven by quasars on their environment has become widely recognized. Quasars provide radiative feedback in the form of pressure and photo heating, and have been increasingly invoked by popular evolution models to regulate both the star formation in the host galaxies and the accretion of material onto the central supermassive black holes. In this talk, I will discuss Extremely Red Quasars (ERQs), a unique red quasar population at redshift z =2-3 with exotic physical conditions. Our new NIR observations show that ERQs have the broadest and most blue-shifted [OIII]4959,5007 emission lines ever reported, with widths and blue-shifted wings reaching 6000 km/s1. They are candidates to be young objects in a transition stage between dusty starbursts and unobscured blue quasars: the perfect laboratory where to study powerful outflows through their peculiar emission lines.