About the project
This project will be observationally driven and you will have proprietary access to two new spectroscopic survey datasets from the 4MOST spectrograph on the ESO VISTA telescope, and the MOONS spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope, which are due to begin observations in 2025.
Quasars are among the brightest lights in our Universe and powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes. With the advent of very large, highly multiplexed wide-field spectroscopic surveys, we are entering a golden age for studies of quasar demographics where the rest-frame ultraviolet and optical spectra can be used to characterise the accretion and outflow properties in large statistical samples extending out to the highest redshifts when the first galaxies were forming.
The largest sample of spectroscopically confirmed quasars to date comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which has provided us almost a million quasar spectra out to redshifts of 6. The bright flux limit and optical wavelength coverage of SDSS however means it is not sensitive to both more distant and obscured quasars. In the former case the optical light is attenuated by dust around the quasar or in the quasar host galaxy while in the latter case it is redshifted into the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The 4MOST spectrograph on the ESO VISTA telescope, can probe an order of magnitude deeper than SDSS. The MOONS spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope, extends into the near infra-red wavelengths where the effects of dust attenuation are much less marked. As a result, they offer an unprecedented opportunity to extend the census of known quasars into the distant and obscured Universe. How many such quasars are out there? Are their physical properties similar to, or different from the well-established optically selected population from SDSS?
You will be part of a vibrant and growing research team at Southampton including PhD students and postdoctoral researchers exploiting the latest multi-wavelength surveys to understand galaxy formation. The project will give you an opportunity to join the 4MOST and the VLT-MOONS Guaranteed Time Observation consortia and to work with scientists in the UK, Europe, USA and Chile as well as to develop new skills in spectroscopy of astronomical sources.
