Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA): The Weak Environmental Dependence of
  Quasar Activity at 0.1<z<0.35
  Understanding the connection between nuclear activity and galaxy environment
remains critical in constraining models of galaxy evolution. By exploiting
extensive catalogued data from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, we
identify a representative sample of 205 quasars at 0.1 < z < 0.35 and establish
a comparison sample of galaxies, closely matched to the quasar sample in terms
of both stellar mass and redshift. On scales <1 Mpc, the galaxy number counts
and group membership of quasars appear entirely consistent with those of the
matched galaxy sample. Despite this, we find that quasars are ~1.5 times more
likely to be classified as the group center, indicating a potential link
between quasar activity and cold gas flows or galaxy interactions associated
with rich group environments. On scales of ~a few Mpc, the clustering strength
of both samples are statistically consistent and beyond 10 Mpc we find no
evidence that quasars trace large scale structures any more than the galaxy
control sample. Both populations are found to prefer intermediate-density
sheets and filaments to either very high- or very low- density environments.
This weak dependence of quasar activity on galaxy environment supports a
paradigm in which quasars represent a phase in the lifetime of all massive
galaxies and in which secular processes and a group-centric location are the
dominant trigger of quasars at low redshift.
