Hot Dust Obscured Galaxies, or Hot DOGs, are some of the most luminous obscured quasars known in the Universe. Quasars and mergers, in general, are expected to play a major role in the evolution of massive galaxies. The idea is that mergers are able to drive gas down from the ISM into the central supermassive black holes, ignite an intense episode of accretion (known as as quasar) that is at first completely dust obscured, but eventually the pressure from the photons and/or radio jets removes some of this dust, moving onto the traditional quasar phase, and eventually shuts down star formation in the galaxy. A number of studies (e.g., Stern et al. 2014, Tsai et al. 2015, 2018, Assef et al. 2015, 2022, Diaz-Santos et al. 2016, Wu et al. 2018, Zewdie et al. 2023) we shown that Hot DOGs and their environments have characteristic that make it likely that these objects correspond to that first phase of the evolution, when the very intense accretion is completely dust enshrouded. Diaz-Santos et al. (2018) dramatically showed that this picture is likely in place for the most luminous Hot DOG known, W2246-0526, by finding that the Hot DOG is at the center of a multiple merger, with dusty tidal tails joining it to its three nearest neighbors. In this project, we have carried out similar observations to those from Diaz-Santos et al. (2018) in a sample of 4 more Hot DOGs to determine if these structures are commonly observed in these objects.
Type of project: Research, actively recruiting new young researchers
Status: Ongoing
Researchers: Roberto Assef, Manuel Aravena, Mai Liao
Funding source: FONDECYT Regular, Basal CATA2