SMG Overdensities around WISE-selected AGN

Conference poster, 2016

We present JCMT SCUBA-2 850 μm submillimetre (submm) observations of 10 mid-infrared (mid-IR) luminous active galactic nuclei (AGNs), detected by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky IR survey and 30 that have also been detected by the NVSS/FIRST radio survey. These rare sources are selected by their extremely red mid-IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Further investigations show that they are highly obscured, have abundant warm AGN-heated dust and are thought to be experiencing intense AGN feedback. When comparing the number of submm galaxies detected serendipitously in the surrounding 1.5 arcmin to those in blank-field submm surveys, there is a very significant overdensity, of order 3-5, but no sign of radial clustering centred at our primary objects. The WISE-selected AGN thus reside in 10-Mpc-scale overdense environments that could be forming in pre-viralized clusters of galaxies. WISE-selected AGNs appear to be the strongest signposts of high-density regions of active, luminous and dusty galaxies. SCUBA-2 850 μm observations indicate that their submm fluxes are low compared to many popular AGN SED templates, hence the WISE/radio-selected AGNs have either less cold and/or more warm dust emission than normally assumed for typical AGN. Most of the targets have total IR luminosities ≥1013 L⊙, with known redshifts of 20 targets between z ˜ 0.44-4.6.