Dr Peter Hatfield

Abstract:

Foreground contamination is one of the most important limiting factors in detecting the neutral hydrogen in the epoch of reionisation. These foregrounds can be roughly split into galactic and extragalactic foregrounds. In these proceedings we highlight information that can be gleaned from multi-wavelength extragalactic surveys in order to overcome this issue. We discuss how clustering information from the lower-redshift, foreground galaxies, can be used as additional information in accounting for the noise associated with the foregrounds. We then go on to highlight the expected contribution of future optical and near-infrared surveys for detecting the galaxies responsible for ionising the Universe. We suggest that these galaxies can also be used to reduce the systematics in the 21-cm epoch of reionisation signal through cross-correlations if enough common area is surveyed.

Abstract:

Dark matter haloes in which galaxies reside are likely to have a significant impact on their evolution. We investigate the link between dark matter haloes and their constituent galaxies by measuring the angular two-point correlation function of radio sources, using recently released 3 GHz imaging over $\sim 2 \ \mathrm{deg}^2$ of the COSMOS field. We split the radio source population into Star Forming Galaxies (SFGs) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), and further separate the AGN into radiatively efficient and inefficient accreters. Restricting our analysis to $z<1$, we find SFGs have a bias, $b = 1.5 ^{+0.1}_{-0.2}$, at a median redshift of $z=0.62$. On the other hand, AGN are significantly more strongly clustered with $b = 2.1\pm 0.2$ at a median redshift of 0.7. This supports the idea that AGN are hosted by more massive haloes than SFGs. We also find low-accretion rate AGN are more clustered ($b = 2.9 \pm 0.3$) than high-accretion rate AGN ($b = 1.8^{+0.4}_{-0.5}$) at the same redshift ($z \sim 0.7$), suggesting that low-accretion rate AGN reside in higher mass haloes. This supports previous evidence that the relatively hot gas that inhabits the most massive haloes is unable to be easily accreted by the central AGN, causing them to be inefficient. We also find evidence that low-accretion rate AGN appear to reside in halo masses of $M_{h} \sim 3-4 \times 10^{13}h^{-1}$M$_{\odot}$ at all redshifts. On the other hand, the efficient accreters reside in haloes of $M_{h} \sim 1-2 \times 10^{13}h^{-1}$M$_{\odot}$ at low redshift but can reside in relatively lower mass haloes at higher redshifts. This could be due to the increased prevalence of cold gas in lower mass haloes at $z \ge 1$ compared to $z<1$.