The brightest ULIRG:watching the birth of a quasar

TL;DR

This paper studies the ULIRG F00183-7111, revealing a rare transition from quasar to radio mode activity with a radio-loud AGN and CO detection, providing insights into galaxy evolution and AGN activity stages.

Contribution

It presents detailed observations of a ULIRG in transition, highlighting the rare phase of changing from quasar to radio mode activity, and discusses implications for future ULIRG research.

Findings

Detection of a radio-loud AGN with jets in the ULIRG

Observation of CO signal indicating molecular gas content

Implications for understanding galaxy evolution stages

Abstract

The extreme ULIRG F00183-7111 has recently been found to have a radio-loud AGN with jets in its centre, representing an extreme example of the class of radio-loud AGNs buried within dusty star-forming galaxies. This source appears to be a rare example of a ULIRG glimpsed in the (presumably) brief period as it changes from "quasar mode" to "radio mode" activity. Such transition stages probably account for many of the high-redshift radio-galaxies and extreme high-redshift ULIRGs, and so this object at the relatively low redshift of 0.328 offers a rare opportunity to study this class of objects in detail. We have also detected the CO signal from this galaxy with the ATCA, and here describe the implications of this detection for future ULIRG studies.