Speaker
Description
We present the properties of 56 massive galaxies selected via optical variability in the VST-COSMOS survey at $z<1$. VST-COSMOS achieves a similar depth in a single visit (approximately 24.6 mag in the r-band) and has an eleven-year temporal baseline comparable to the upcoming LSST. However, it covers a much smaller area of just 1 deg$^2$. We compare the rest-frame colours, morphologies, presence of interactions, and environment of the variable galaxies to a control sample of non-variable galaxies within the same redshift and mass range as the variable galaxies. We find that $\sim$ 50 per-cent of AGN are of early-type morphologies and $\sim$ 20 per-cent are interacting; these percentages are similar to those observed in the control sample. Additionally, we do not find significant differences between the AGN and controls in the local environment or rest-frame ($u-z$) colors, which suggests that the surroundings of the AGN and their recent star formation histories are not different from the general galaxy population. Our study highlights AGN science that LSST will revolutionize, scaling our analysis from a single square degree to thousands, given that LSST is four orders of magnitude larger than the VST-COSMOS footprint.
