UNDERSTANDING DUAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS ACTIVATION IN THE NEARBY UNIVERSE

By M. Koss, R. Mushotzky, E. Treister, Sylvain Veilleux, R. Vasudevan, M. Trippe. 2012

148 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the fraction of dual active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in a sample of 167 nearby (z < 0.05), moderate-luminosity, ultra-hard X-ray-selected AGNs from the all-sky Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) survey. Combining new Chandra and Gemini observations together with optical and X-ray observations, we find that the dual AGN frequency at scales <100 kpc is ∼10% (16/167). Of the 16 dual AGNs, only 3 (19%) were detected using X-ray spectroscopy and were not detected using emission line diagnostics. Close dual AGNs (<30 kpc) tend to be more common among the most X-ray luminous systems. In dual AGNs, the X-ray luminosity of both AGNs increases strongly with decreasing galaxy separation, suggesting that the merging event is key in powering both AGNs. Fifty percent of the AGNs with a very close companion (<15 kpc) are dual AGNs. We also find that dual AGNs are more likely to occur in major mergers and tend to avoid absorption line galaxies with elliptical morphologies. Finally, we find that SDSS Seyferts are much less likely than BAT AGNs (0.25% versus 7.8%) to be found in dual AGNs at scales <30 kpc because of a smaller number of companion galaxies, fiber collision limits, a tendency for AGNs at small separations to be detected only in X-rays, and a higher fraction of dual AGN companions with increasing AGN luminosity.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d4b1ebab1d4724ebe80d47259d8c42866762833a

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. L. Hernquist
2. D. M. Alexander
3. P. Hopkins
4. M. Volonteri
5. R. Hickox
6. Volker Springel
7. R. Dav'e
8. Y. Dubois

In Instrumentation

1. M. Volonteri
2. L. Hernquist
3. R. Hickox
4. P. Hopkins
5. D. M. Alexander
6. Y. Dubois
7. P. Best
8. J. Trevor Mendel

Citations in the corpus

• BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. V. X-Ray Properties of the Swift/BAT 70-month AGN Catalog (2017, background): “0+2914 is the nearby galaxy UGC03995B, which is detected in the 0.3–10keV band and is interacting with UGC03995A (Koss et al. 2012).”
• Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – VIII. The observational properties of post-merger galaxies (2013, background): “…Geller & Kenyon 2000; Kewley, Geller & Barton 2006; Woods, Geller & Barton 2006; Smith et al. 2007; Jogee et al. 2009; Rupke, Kewley & Chien 2010; Koss et al. 2010, 2012; Silverman et al. 2011; Wong et al. 2011; Ramos-Almeida et al. 2011, 2012; Xu et al. 2012; Cotini et al. 2013; Lanz et al.…”
• The quest for dual and binary supermassive black holes: A multi-messenger view (2019, background): “In this regard, the fraction of dual AGN has been estimated by Koss et al. (2012) in a sample of local (z < 0.05), moderate-luminosity AGN selected from the all-sky hard-X ray Swift/BAT survey.”
• Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey – IX. Merger-induced AGN activity as traced by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (2014, background): “…samples of galaxy pairs have been found at optical,radio and X-ray wavelengths (e.g., Woods & Geller 2007; Koss et al. 2010; Silverman et al. 2011; Koss et al. 2012; Liu et al. 2012; Sabater et al. 2013), a direct comparison of these selectiontechniques has not been previously performed, and we…”
• The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, result): “There are many papers reaching seemingly contrary conclusions, of which some recent examples are Koss et al. (2011, 2012), Alonso et al. (2007), Ellison et al. (2011), Hwang et al. (2012), Liu et al. (2012), and Sabater et al. (2013).”
• BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey. I. Spectral Measurements, Derived Quantities, and AGN Demographics (2017, background): “Another issue is that some BAT AGN counterparts host dual AGN (Koss et al. 2016b), however, the median value of the(Lint2−10 keV) ratio between the dual AGNs is 11 (Koss et al. 2012), so the majority of the emission in the BAT detection is typically coming from a single AGN.”
• The 105-Month Swift-BAT All-sky Hard X-Ray Survey (2018, background): “For instance the typical luminosity ratio for dual AGN is large (1/11, Koss et al. 2012).”
• Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments (2016, background): “In the last decade the search for multi-MBH systems have yielded many with kiloparsec-scale separations (‘Dual AGN’, e.g. Comerford et al. 2012)—although they seem to represent only a fraction of the population (Koss et al. 2012)—and even some triple systems (e.g. Deane et al. 2014).”
• The cosmic evolution of massive black holes in the Horizon-AGN simulation (2016, background): “Observations also find an enhancement of AGN activity in galaxies with companions (Ellison et al. 2008, 2011; Silverman et al. 2011; Koss et al. 2012; Lackner et al. 2014).”