# 1 Cosmological evolution of quasars

## 1 Cosmological evolution of quasars

The aim of this paper is to interpret the strong cosmological evolution that is seen in the quasar population. We have known for many years that the quasar comoving space density increases by a factor about 100 between a redshift of 0 and 2. There is now strong evidence that $`z2`$ marks a peak in quasar space density$`^{\text{[24, 23]}}`$. Fig. 1 shows a new compilation$`^{\text{[20]}}`$ of quasar comoving space density in a variety of wavebands. The samples cover a fixed range of luminosity, and the luminosity range is that for which the greatest amount of evolution is observed, thereby providing the strongest test of any explanations of evolution. Samples in different wavebands inevitably sample different subsets of the overall AGN population, and the luminosity ranges chosen probably correspond to slightly different bolometric luminosities. Thus there are differences in the normalisation of each sample which have been removed by fitting a smooth function to all the data and allowing the normalisations of each sample to vary so as to minimise the scatter about the curve. The renormalised sample points have been plotted with the normalisation appropriate to the X-ray data. The cosmological parameters of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model have been assumed: the shape of the observed evolution shows little dependence on choice of cosmology.

The agreement between the different wavebands is a strong argument that the apparent turnover in space density is real: any selection effects should be different in the different wavebands and such good agreement would not be expected.  have argued strongly that the flat-spectrum radio-loud quasars in particular are unlikely to be affected by any selection- or non-evolutionary cosmological effects. We shall assume that the observed turnover is a real symptom of the cosmological evolution of the quasar population.

There are two chief hypotheses which have been invoked to explain the cosmological evolution. The first is based on evolution in accretion rate onto black holes (e.g. ). The other assumes that mergers trigger quasar activation and uses cosmological models of galaxy formation to predict the observed evolution. We are hampered by not knowing the lifetimes of quasars, but there is growing evidence that the second picture is correct. At least some quasars and active galaxies are associated with mergers$`^{\text{[25, 6]}}`$. There are also links between starburst galaxies and AGN, in that many ultra-luminous infrared galaxies appear to harbour obscured AGN, and those ULIGs seem to be associated with interactions$`^{\text{[26]}}`$. Occasionally quasars are also found to be associated with old starburst populations ($`0.4`$Gyr)$`^{\text{[6, 4]}}`$. Simulations$`^{\text{[19]}}`$ show that gas can be driven into the inner regions of galaxies during merger events and can trigger short-lived bursts of star-formation, and this may also trigger accretion onto a massive central black hole$`^{\text{[1]}}`$. The most luminous quasars ($`M_R<22`$) are always found in massive host galaxies, and it now appears that those host galaxies are elliptical galaxies irrespective of whether the quasar is radio-loud or radio-quiet$`^{\text{[18]}}`$: one route to the formation of massive elliptical galaxies is through merging. Overall, the hypothesis that emerges is that quasars may be triggered by interactions between galaxies and that the quasars are relatively short-lived ($`<1`$Gyr) compared with the age of the universe. In this case the dominant factor in the cosmological evolution of quasars should be the rate at which galaxies merge.  and  have previously invoked the merging of dark matter halos, and in this paper we follow on from their work, but we present a new and more rigorous Press-Schechter$`^{\text{[22]}}`$ calculation of the merger rate between dark halos.

## 2 The Press-Schechter merger rate

PS theory allows us to estimate the number density of halos at any redshift as a function of their mass$`^{\text{[22, 3]}}`$: halos of any given mass $`M`$ are being continually formed from mergers between dark halos of lower mass. Thus a calculation of the rate of generation of halos of mass $`M`$ should give us an estimate of the rate of merging at that halo mass. However, it is not possible simply to differentiate the PS mass-function wrt time because at any given cosmic epoch not only are new halos continually being formed but also existing halos of that mass are being lost into systems of yet higher mass. , inter alia, have considered conditional probability distributions which allowed those authors to estimate merger rates given a range of progenitor masses. However, if we are interested simply in the time evolution of the rate of mergers, we can derive this much more simply from  as shown by Percival (this volume) and .  argue that the evolution in merger rate thus derived is independent of the choice of progenitor masses. For a flat $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ cosmology this evolution is given by:

$$\left(\frac{dn}{dt}\right)^+(1+z)^{3.5}exp(\beta (1+z)^2)$$
(1)   
where $`\beta =\alpha ^2/(2\sigma _M^2)`$ is a function of the mass of halo and the power spectrum. The functional form is readily calculable for other cosmologies$`^{\text{[20]}}`$. In this paper we investigate four cosmologies (OCDM, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$CDM, SCDM, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM) (see ).

## 3 Comparison with observations

We need to convert the predicted rate of merging of dark matter halos into observed quasar numbers. We shall take a “black-box” approach in which we ignore the unknown physics which relates a merging dark halo to the luminosity of an activated quasar. We shall instead assume the simplest possible model, namely that if we take the rate of merging of dark halos in the mass range of the host galaxies of luminous quasars and convolve that with an assumed quasar light-curve, then we shall obtain an estimate of the observed number density of quasars at any epoch. That is, we assume that some fixed but unknown fraction of mergers result in the activation of a quasar. We need quasar lifetimes to be short compared with the Hubble time, as otherwise the model would be convolved with a broad function and would not match the large amount of observed evolution. In this study we simply choose an exponential light curve of decay-time 0.6 Gyr.

The OCDM model does not produce enough evolution. Reasonable fits can be obtained for the remaining three models, although all of them have a deficit in the amount of evolution between $`z=2`$ and $`z=0`$ of about a factor 4. We plot the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model with halo mass $`10^{11.8}\mathrm{M}_{}`$ in Fig. 1. The normalisation has been treated as a free parameter as the fraction of mergers (and indeed the actual typical lifetime of quasars) is unknown. The SCDM model also fits reasonably with a high value for halo mass, but can probably be excluded on other grounds$`^{\text{[11]}}`$. The $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$CDM model fits with a value for the halo mass of $`10^{10.6}\mathrm{M}_{}`$: a value which is rather low, although the halo mass would be increased to $`10^{11.8}\mathrm{M}_{}`$ if $`\sigma _8`$ were increased from 0.6 to 0.9. Increasing $`h`$ from 0.5 to 0.7 decreases the inferred halo masses by a factor about 3.

## 4 Discussion

This picture produces good agreement with the key features of the evolution of quasars: a rapid rise in quasar space density over $`0<z<2`$, a peak at $`z2.5`$ followed by a decline to higher redshifts. The halo mass inferred is comparable to that inferred from the observation that quasars live in massive host galaxies. The models don’t produce quite enough evolution over the range $`0<z<2`$ however: a factor 4 more evolution appears to be required. Previous authors have suggested the expected cosmological evolution in either pairwise velocity differences$`^{\text{[7]}}`$ or in halo rotation velocity$`^{\text{[12]}}`$ may be a factor.

It has also been suggested that the observed cosmological evolution in star-formation rate and quasar numbers may be linked. If both are a by-product of mergers the model described here may also apply to the star-formation evolution. Fig. 1 also shows the evolution in star-formation history together with the predictions of the merger model, again convolved with an exponential light curve of decay-time 0.6 Gyr (appropriate for the ultraviolet light from a burst of star formation$`^{\text{[5]}}`$). We can see excellent agreement with the data at $`z<2`$. Almost any halo mass gives the required amount of evolution in the redshift range where the data are well-constrained. There is thus effectively only one free parameter, the normalisation of the curve, which is a measure of the efficiency with which dark halo mergers generate stars. Because the model assumes that the star-formation occurs in short-lived bursts associated directly with mergers we see a large amount of evolution, in contrast to semi-analytic modelling$`^{\text{[2]}}`$ where it would appear that the smaller predicted amounts of evolution are primarily due to having longer-lived periods of star formation. A prediction of the model presented here is that the stellar populations associated with the evolving ultraviolet light should all appear young ($`<1`$Gyr). At higher redshifts the data are still very uncertain, but we hope that future determinations of the mass of the star-forming galaxies and their halos should be a good test of the model.