COSMOS: A Radio and (Sub)mm Study of Starbursts and AGN throughout Cosmic History

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Frank Bertoldi; Dr. Eva Schinnerer
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2005 to 2012
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5449732

The COSMOS project is a pan-chromatic (X-ray to radio) survey to perform the most comprehensive study of galaxy and super-massive black hole evolution in the crucial redshift range z = 0.5 to 3, with particular attention to the influence of environment and large scale structure. The applicants are leading the radio and (sub)mm observational efforts in the COSMOS project using the VLA, both IRAM instruments, and APEX. For a significant time to come, the COSMOS project will provide key data for constraining models of galaxy formation and large scale structure. The areal coverage is large enough to overcome cosmic variance, and to delineate structure on the largest relevant scales (~ 100 Mpc comoving). Our radio and (sub)mm observations represent a fundamental contribution to the project, including: (i) the identification/characterization of massive, dust-obscured starburst galaxies to quantify their role in the cosmic star formation history, (ii) tracing the evolution of the FIR/radio correlation for star forming galaxies, and (iii) the evolution of low luminosity radio AGN out to high redshift. We request funding for a postdoc and a doctoral student to work on the radio-related science, and for a postdoc and a doctoral student to work on the ongoing APEX-submm survey and on follow-up observations of the mm sources discovered during the current funding period.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1177: Witnesses of Cosmic History: Formation and Evolution of Black Holes, Galaxies and Their Environments