The Fraction of Active Galactic Nuclei in the USS 1558-003 Protocluster
  at z = 2.53
  The incidence of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with local environment is a
potentially valuable probe of the mechanisms that trigger and provide fuel for
accretion onto supermassive black holes. While the correlation between AGN
fraction and environment has been well-studied in the local universe, AGN
fractions have been measured for relatively few dense environments at high
redshift. In this paper we present a measurement of the X-ray AGN fraction in
the USS 1558-003 protocluster associated with the z=2.53 radio galaxy 4C-00.62.
Our measurement is based on a 100ks Chandra observation, follow-up spectroscopy
from the Multi-Object Double Spectrograph on the Large Binocular Telescope, and
broad and narrow band photometry. These data are sensitive to AGN more luminous
than $L_{X}>2\times10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$ in the rest-frame hard X-ray band
(2-10 keV). We have identified two X-ray AGN at the redshift of USS 1558-003,
one of which is the radio galaxy. We have determined that $2.0^{+2.6}_{-1.3}$%
of the H$\alpha$ emitters in the protocluster are X-ray AGN. Unlike most other
high-redshift cluster progenitors studied with similar techniques, USS 1558-003
does not have a significantly higher fraction of AGN than field galaxies at
similar redshifts. This lower AGN fraction is inconsistent with the expectation
that the higher gas fractions at high redshift, combined with the high galaxy
densities and modest relative velocities in protoclusters, should produce
higher AGN fractions.
