Characterising radio emission high-redshift (z > 4) AGN with MIGHTEE-MOONS

Project Description:

New populations of faint active galactic nuclei (AGN) at redshifts of z > 4 have been identified and studied in great detail over the last several years. The identification of these faint high-redshift AGN has largely been made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) which has been a great for identifying galaxies in the early Universe. Statistical samples of near-infrared detected AGN have been identified through JWST/NIRSpec and NIRCam observations and using techniques such as SED-fitting, detailed studies of physical properties such as stellar mass, black-hole mass, bolometric luminosities, and Eddington ratios are possible (Harikane et al. 2023; Scholtz et al. 2024; Maiolino et al. 2024; Napolitano et al. 2025; Treiber et al. 2024). While the optical, and infrared components of these sources are well studied, an investigation of the radio emission from these infrared-faint AGN is still required for many of the known samples. Since radio emission originates from processes involving the acceleration of relativistic particles (synchrotron radiation) by radio jets and thermal free-free emission from HII regions, studying the radio component of AGN is key to determining whether an AGN is jetted (or jet dominant) or non-jetted (star-formation dominant).

Research Area:

Astronomy

Project Level:

Honours

This Project Is Offered At The Following Node(s):

(UCT)(UKZN)(NWU)

Special Requirements:

The student should be able to write their code in Python/MATLAB for numerical and computational analysis. They should know or be willing to quickly adapt to writing up reports in LaTeX. They should have a basic knowledge of concepts that are integral to galaxy population studies.