| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis I used a sample of radio galaxies with 1.4GHz radio luminosity, S1.4 > 10mJy,
with the aim of finding high-redshift radio galaxies in the Lockman Hole, ELAIS-N1, ELAISN2,
XMM-LSS and CDFS using near-infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and in
the VIMOS4/SSA22 field using near-infrared data from the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey
Deep Extragalactic Survey (UKIDSS-DXS). I used these near-infrared data to filter out low
redshift (z < 2) radio galaxies by only including sources with either a very faint identification
or non-detection in the K−band or at 3.6μm. I then applied a radio selection criteria based on
the compactness of the radio structure in the FIRST survey, to ensure that it was possible to
correctly associate a near-infrared identification if detected.
Using these filtering critera I reduced the sample from 498 to 220, and I obtained spectroscopic
observations for 46 of these. I successfully measured redshifts for 22 of these. Four
of these sources were found to have redshifts at z > 3, thus proving the efficiency of the selection.
Using these spectroscopically identified sources I investigated the correlation between
radio luminosity and Lyα emission line luminosity and showed that these radio sources lie on
the same correlations as their more radio-luminous counterparts, suggesting that accretion rate
on to the central supermassive black hole determines the power of the AGN, both in terms
of photoionizing radiation and radio power. I also investigated the near infrared properties of
the host galaxy for these sources. Studying the 3.6μm magnitude versus redshift, I found that
many of the radio galaxies in our sample lie on a similar relation as other powerful radio sources
studied by different methods, although in my selection there is a bias to the fainter end of the
distribution, likely due to the selection bias that I impose.
The selection criteria has led us to report on the discovery of the highest redshift radio
galaxy ever found, however the robustness of the redshift should be confirmed by follow up
spectroscopy as the source has KAB magnitude of ∼ 20.7 which is in an area of the K − z
diagram which makes it consistent with both z∼ 1 (in the case of [Oii]) and z ∼ 5 (in the case
of Lyα).
Finally I determined the number density of high-redshift sources in my sample at different
epochs and show that the SKADS simulation is consistent with our observed radio galaxy
sample. Using this knowledge I go on to predict the number of sources for current and future
near-infrared surveys, where the future appears very bright for this kind of work. | en_US |
