Sampling Studies of Quasars, Radio-Loud Galaxies, & Radio-Quiet Galaxies – Environmental characteristics

COLDWELL GEORGINA ; SALOIS AMEE; SOECHTING ILONA; SMITH MALCOLM

Seattle

Congreso; 217th AAS Meeting; 2011

Comparing the environments of Radio-Loud Galaxies, Radio-Quiet Galaxies, and Quasars offers an opportunity to study the evolution of these objects. Our samples have been carefully chosen from Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which also includes samples studied in the FIRST survey, and have been cut to determine the best possible results. Our study includes three samples. The Quasar sample currently contains 69 objects, the Radio-Loud Galaxy (RLG) sample has 1,335 objects, and the Radio-Quiet Galaxy (RQG) sample contains 2,436 objects (any updates will be given at the meeting). A number of trims were made to produce (smaller) samples with characteristics suited for precise results. By comparing the environments of these three samples we will be able to see any similarities or differences between them. If similarities are detected it suggests that the central object has evolved according to ´nature´ - in an isolated manner with little environmental feedback, which may or may not have an effect on its evolution, as supposed by Coldwell et al. (2009). If differences are detected it suggests that the central object has evolved according to `nurture’ and that the environment may have played an important role in the development of their properties. We employ similar procedures used by Coldwell et al. (2009) in their study of blue and red AGNs. Upon the completion of an accurate sample, future work will be pursued studying a number of properties of the environments including studies of: the stellar masses, star formation rates, sersic morphologies, as well as densities and ages of the environments.