The Main Sequence View of Quasars Accreting at High Rates: Influence of Star Formation Contribution presented at the 237th meeting of the AAS

• Published in: Research notes of the AAS Vol. 5; no. 2
• Main Authors: Marziani, Paola, Sniegowska, Marzena, Panda, Swayamtrupta, Czerny, Bo ena, Negrete, C. Alenka, Dultzin, Deborah, Garnica, Karla, Martínez-Aldama, Mary Loli, del Olmo, Ascensión, D'Onofrio, Mauro, Machado, Alice Deconto, Ganci, Valerio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The American Astronomical Society 11.02.2021
• Subjects: Active galactic nuclei
• ISSN: 2515-5172
• DOI: 10.3847/2515-5172/abe46a

Highly accreting quasars show fairly distinctive properties in their optical, UV, and X spectra, and are easy to recognize because of their specific location in the quasar main sequence: they are the strongest optical FeII emitters. They show a surprisingly high rate of radio detections and, at variance with the classical radio-loud (jetted) sources, the origin of their radio emission is probably "thermal." The chemical composition of the broad line emitting gas implies high metallicity values, above 10 times solar. A fraction of highly accreting quasars at intermediate and high redshift might therefore be in a particular evolutionary stage that is unobscured albeit still involving a contribution of nuclear and circum-nuclear star formation in their multifrequency properties.