The importance of AGN feedback in galaxy evolution: challenges for current and future wide area surveys.


Vincenzo Mainieri

Theoretical models of AGN radiative feedback predict that AGN-driven, galaxy wide massive outflows are not a rare and peculiar phenomenon, but a fundamental process affecting the bulk of the baryons in the universe. Currently, sparse observational evidence of AGN feedback exists at z>1 but mostly limited to high luminosity objects, therefore a comprehensive picture is still far from being reached.I will report on the first results from our on-going SINFONI Large Programme at ESO (SUPER) aimed at carrying out the first statistically-sound investigation of ionized outflows in AGN host galaxies at the peak epoch of AGN and galaxy assembly, z~2. Such survey was designed based on extensive Suprime-Cam imaging data.Finally, I will discuss how wide area surveys with upcoming instrumentation, as PFS/Subaru and MOONS/VLT, will drammatically change our ability to constrain the impact of AGN-driven outflows on the star-formation efficiency of their host galaxies at z>2.