Exploring AGN Activity over cosmic time with the SKA

In this Chapter we present the motivation for undertaking both a wide and deep survey with the SKA in the context of studying AGN activity across cosmic time. With an rms down to 1 µJy/beam at 1 GHz over 1,000 - 5,000 deg2 in 1 year (wide tier band 1/2) and an rms down to 200 nJy/beam over 10 - 30 d...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Smolcic, V., Padovani, P., Delhaize, J., Prandoni, I., Seymour, Nick, Jarvis, M., Afonso, J., Magliocchett, M., Huynh, I., Vaccari, M., Karim, A.
Format: Journal Article
Published: SPIE - Internatioal Society for Optocal Engineering 2014
Online Access:http://pos.sissa.it/archive/conferences/215/069/AASKA14_069.pdf
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/32315
Description
Summary:In this Chapter we present the motivation for undertaking both a wide and deep survey with the SKA in the context of studying AGN activity across cosmic time. With an rms down to 1 µJy/beam at 1 GHz over 1,000 - 5,000 deg2 in 1 year (wide tier band 1/2) and an rms down to 200 nJy/beam over 10 - 30 deg2 in 2000 hours (deep tier band 1/2), these surveys will directly detect faint radio-loud and radio-quiet AGN (down to a 1 GHz radio luminosity of about 2×1023 W/Hz at z = 6). For the first time, this will enable us to conduct detailed studies of the cosmic evolution of radio AGN activity to the cosmic dawn (z ? 6), covering all environmental densities.