Related papers: High-Redshift Quasars as Probes of Galaxy and Clus…
Several arguments suggest that quasars at z > 4 may be in the cores of future giant ellipticals, and forming at the very highest peaks of the primordial density field. A strong bias-driven primordial clustering is then expected in these…
High redshift quasars mark the locations where massive galaxies are rapidly being assembled and forming stars. There is growing evidence that quasar environments are metal-rich out to redshifts of at least five. The gas-phase metallicities…
Quasars are among the most luminous objects in the universe, and they can be studied in detail up to the highest known redshift. Assuming that the gas associated with quasars is closely related to the interstellar medium of the host galaxy,…
The distribution on the sky of clusters of galaxies shows significant association with relatively nearby, large, active galaxies. The pattern is that of clusters paired equidistant across a central galaxy with the apparent magnitudes and…
Recently, it was suggested that large concentrations or groups of quasars may trace sites of enhanced matter density at medium and high redshifts analogous to how galaxy clusters trace them in nearby space. We have checked existing quasar…
Quasars are powerful systems whose spectrum is rich of metal features that allow us to investigate the chemical evolution of galaxies at very high redshift, even close to the reionization epoch. I review the main observational constraints…
Globular clusters will be present at high redshifts, near the very beginning of the galaxy formation process. Stellar evolution ensures that they will be much more luminous than today. We show that the redshift distribution at nano-Jansky…
Bulges are a major galaxy component in the nearby universe, and are one of the primary features that differentiates and defines galaxies. The origin of bulges can be directly probed in part by examining distant galaxies to search for high…
Recent observations show a large concentration of galaxies at high redshift. At first sight strong clustering of galaxies at high redshifts seems to be in contradiction with the models of structure formation. In this paper we show that such…
We have obtained deep, multi-band imaging observations around three of the most distant known quasars at redshifts z>6. Standard accretion theory predicts that the supermassive black holes present in these quasars were formed at a very…
We report on the current status of our search for protoclusters around quasars at z > 4. While the search is still very incomplete, clustered companion galaxies are found in virtually every case examined so far. The implied comoving number…
The study of galaxy protoclusters is beginning to fill in unknown details of the important phase of the assembly of clusters and cluster galaxies. This review describes the current status of this field and highlights promising recent…
The majority of bright distant quasars $(z {}^{>}_{\sim} 1)$ may form in massive mergers appearing in compact galaxy groups in/and young clusters. The expected tests are (i) large correlation signal for medium-$z$ QSOs $(1 < z < 2)$ and…
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in Universe. They are very important as both cosmological probes and astrophysical laboratories. Several methods have been developed to detect galaxy clusters with different techniques (optical,…
The large-scale overdensities of galaxies at z~2-7 known as protoclusters are believed to be the sites of cluster formation, and deep, wide survey projects such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and the Wide Field Infrared…
As the largest gravitationally bound structures known, clusters provide clear constraints on the formation of structure and on the composition of the universe. Despite their extreme importance for cosmology the number of clusters at high…
The clustering properties of clusters, galaxies and AGN as a function of redshift are briefly discussed. It appears that extremely red objects at z ~ 1, and objects with J-K > 1.7 and photometric redshifts 2 < z_phot < 4 are highly…
In this thesis, I present an investigation into the environments of quasars with respect to galaxy clusters, and environment evolution with redshift and luminosity. The orientation of the quasar with respect to the major axis of the closest…
Quasars at z>4 provide direct information on the first massive structures to form in the Universe. Recent ground-based optical surveys (e.g., the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) have discovered large numbers of high-redshift quasars, increasing…
We compare observed clustering of quasars and galaxies as a function of redshift, mass, luminosity, & color/morphology, to constrain models of quasar fueling and spheroid-BH co-evolution. High redshift quasars are shown to be drawn from…