Cosmological Studies from Radio Source Samples

Abstract

I review some recent cosmological studies based on redshift surveys of radio sources selected at low frequencies. The accretion rate onto the central black hole is identified as the basis of a crude physical division of the low-frequency population into two sub-populations: the first comprises `Eddington-tuned' (high accretion rate) quasars and their torus-hidden counterparts; the second comprises `starved quasars' like M87. There exist remarkable similarities between the shapes and evolutionary behaviours of the luminosity functions of radio sources and radio-quiet quasars; all luminous AGN are $\sim300-$times rarer at epochs corresponding to $z \sim 0$ than at $z \sim 2.5$. I argue that any evidence that quasars were intrinsically rarer at $z \sim 5$ than at $z \sim 2.5$ is as yet both tentative and indirect. A simple calculation suggests that the radio source population has been over-looked as a potentially important contributor to the entropy budget of the Universe. A recent sub-mm survey of radio sources is used to demonstrate a connection between the events which trigger jets and intense bursts of star formation, and a close link between the histories of star formation and AGN activity is proposed. I discuss the aims and methods of future large redshift surveys of radio sources, emphasising the importance of dovetailing these with the development of robust physical models for radio sources and their epoch-dependent environments.