Constraining stellar assembly and AGN feedback at the peak epoch of star
  formation
  We study stellar assembly and feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN)
around the epoch of peak star formation (1<z<2), by comparing hydrodynamic
simulations to rest-frame UV-optical galaxy colours from the Wide Field Camera
3 (WFC3) Early-Release Science (ERS) Programme. Our Adaptive Mesh Refinement
simulations include metal-dependent radiative cooling, star formation, kinetic
outflows due to supernova explosions, and feedback from supermassive black
holes. Our model assumes that when gas accretes onto black holes, a fraction of
the energy is used to form either thermal winds or sub-relativistic
momentum-imparting collimated jets, depending on the accretion rate. We find
that the predicted rest-frame UV-optical colours of galaxies in the model that
includes AGN feedback is in broad agreement with the observed colours of the
WFC3 ERS sample at 1<z<2. The predicted number of massive galaxies also matches
well with observations in this redshift range. However, the massive galaxies
are predicted to show higher levels of residual star formation activity than
the observational estimates, suggesting the need for further suppression of
star formation without significantly altering the stellar mass function. We
discuss possible improvements, involving faster stellar assembly through
enhanced star formation during galaxy mergers while star formation at the peak
epoch is still modulated by the AGN feedback.
