Spheroidal Galaxies/QSOs Connection

Abstract

In view of the extensive evidence of a tight inter-relationship between spheroidal galaxies (and galactic bulges) and massive black holes hosted at their centers, a consistent model must deal jointly with the evolution of the two components. We describe one viable model, which successfully accounts for the local luminosity function of spheroidal galaxies, their photometric and chemical properties, deep galaxy counts in different wavebands, including those in the (sub)-mm region which proved to be critical for current semi-analytic models stemming from the standard hierarchical clustering picture, clustering properties of SCUBA galaxies, of EROs, and of LBGs, as well as for the local mass function of massive black holes and for quasar evolution. Predictions that can be tested by surveys carried out by SIRTF are presented.

6 pages, 2 fig. To appear in proceedings of "The Mass of Galaxies at Low and High Redshift", held Oct 2001 in Venice, eds. R. Bender and A. Renzini (ESO Astrophysics Symposia, Springer-Verlag)