Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY (THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY)
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Direct effects of the environment on AGN triggering in SDSS spiral galaxies: merger-AGN connection

  • Minbae Kim (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University) ;
  • Yun-Young Choi (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University) ;
  • Sungsoo S Kim (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University)
  • Received : 2019.06.17
  • Accepted : 2019.10.29
  • Published : 20200100
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Abstract

We examine whether galaxy environments directly affect triggering nuclear activity in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) local spiral galaxies using a volume-limited sample with the r-band absolute magnitude Mr < -19.0 and 0.02 <z< 0.055 selected from the SDSS Data Release 7. To avoid incompleteness of the central velocity dispersion σ of the volume-limited sample and to fix the black hole mass affecting AGN activity, we limit the sample to a narrow σ range of 130 km s-1 <σ< 200 km s-1. We define a variety of environments as a combination of neighbour interactions and local density on a galaxy. After the central star formation rate (which is closely related to AGN activity level) is additionally restricted, the direct impact of the environment is unveiled. In the outskirts of rich clusters, red spiral galaxies show a significant excess of the AGN fraction despite the lack of central gas. We argue that they have been pre-processed before entering the rich clusters, and due to mergers or strong encounters in the in-fall region, their remaining gases efficiently lose angular momentum. We investigate an environment in which many star-forming galaxies coexist with a few starburst-AGN composite hosts having the highest [OIII] luminosity. We claim that they are a gas-rich merger product in groups or are group galaxies in-falling into clusters, indicating that many AGN signatures may be obscured following the merger events.

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Acknowledgement

We thank the anonymous referee for useful and detailed comments that improved significantly the original manuscript. We acknowledge support from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea to the Center for Galaxy Evolution Research (No. 2017R1A5A1070354). The work by SSK was supported by the NRF grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea (NRF-2014R1A2A1A11052367). This work was also supported by the BK21 plus program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Education of Korea. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, Cambridge University, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.