The principal objectives of the research program are to explore those aspects of the environment of luminous quasi-stellar ob- jects (QSOs) and powerful radio galaxies that seem most likely to give insights into the physical mechanisms responsible for the production of the active nucleus in these objects. Five specific research projects will be carried out: 1. An intensive imaging and spectroscopic study of a small sample of steep-radio-spectrum QSOs designed specifically to under- stand the correlation between the presence of extended ionized gas and other observed properties. 2. A similar study of three or four broad-spectral-line radio galaxies showing extensive extended ionized gas. 3. A survey to detect extended emission-line regions around intermediate-redshift (greater than 0.6 and less than 0.9) QSOs in order to study the evolutionary history of this phenomenon. 4. A continuation of a deep-imaging survey of a complete sample of Third Cambridge Radio Survey (3CR) galaxies and QSOs with redshifts between 0.8 and 1.3 to explore correlations between the strength and distribution of the extended emission-line radiation and the continuum distribution and color (for the radio galaxies) and the radio structure. 5. A systematic and thorough imaging and spectroscopic investiga- tion of Cygnus A which will provide data that will result in intensity-ratio maps for diagnostic emission lines and give a better understanding of the kinematics of the stars and gas.
