SDSS J085431.18+173730.5: The First Compact Elliptical Galaxy Hosting an Active Nucleus

Abstract

We report the discovery of a rare compact early-type galaxy, SDSS J085431.18+173730.5 (hereafter cE\_AGN). It has an half light radius of R${}_e$ = 490 pc and a brightness of M${}_r$ = $-$18.08 mag. Optical spectroscopy available from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) reveals the presence of prominent broad-line emissions with the H$\alpha$ broad component width of FWHM=2400 km/s. The black hole (BH) mass, as estimated from the luminosity and width of the broad H$\alpha$ emission, is 2.1$\times$10${}^6$ M$_{\sun}$. With the help of surface photometry, we perform a detailed analysis of the structural properties. The observed light distribution is best modeled with a double Sérsic function. Fixing the outer component as an exponential disk, we find that the inner component has a Sérsic index of n = 1.4. Considering the inner component as bulge/spheroidal we find that cE\_AGN remains consistent in both BH mass -- bulge mass relation and BH mass -- bulge Sérsic index relation. Given these observational properties, we discuss its possible origin investigating the surrounding environment where it is located.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in APJL

References in corpus (40)

• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• Coevolution (Or Not) of Supermassive Black Holes and Host Galaxies
• Detailed Structural Decomposition of Galaxy Images
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• Structure and Formation of Elliptical and Spheroidal Galaxies
• Estimating Black Hole Masses in Active Galaxies Using the Halpha Emission Line
• Evolutionary Stellar Population Synthesis with MILES. Part I: The Base Models and a New Line Index System
• Dwarf Galaxies with Optical Signatures of Active Massive Black Holes
• The ACS Virgo Cluster Survey. VIII. The Nuclei of Early-Type Galaxies
• HST photometry of dwarf elliptical galaxies in Coma, and an explanation for the alleged structural dichotomy between dwarf and bright elliptical galaxies
• ULySS: A Full Spectrum Fitting Package
• Formation of early-type galaxies from cosmological initial conditions
• A New Sample of Low-mass Black Holes in Active Galaxies
• A Fundamental Relation Between Compact Stellar Nuclei, Supermassive Black Holes, and Their Host Galaxies
• Active Galactic Nuclei with Candidate Intermediate-Mass Black Holes
• A Supermassive Black Hole in an Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxy
• POX 52: A Dwarf Seyfert 1 Galaxy With An Intermediate-Mass Black Hole
• The (black hole mass)-(host spheroid luminosity) relation at high and low masses, the quadratic growth of black holes, and intermediate-mass black hole candidates
• A log-quadratic relation for predicting supermassive black hole masses from the host bulge Sersic index
• Nuclear star clusters in 228 spiral galaxies in the HST/WFPC2 archive: catalogue and comparison to other stellar systems
• Families of dynamically hot stellar systems over ten orders of magnitude in mass
• Tidal Interaction of M32 and NGC 205 with M31: Surface Photometry and Numerical Simulations
• Cosmic Ménage à Trois: The Origin of Satellite Galaxies On Extreme Orbits
• Black Holes at the Centers of Nearby Dwarf Galaxies
• The UZC-SSRS2 Group Catalog
• Measuring the mass of the central black hole in the bulgeless galaxy NGC 4395 from gas dynamical modeling
• A new formation model for M32: A threshed early-type spiral?
• Evidence for an outer disk in the Prototype `Compact Elliptical' Galaxy M32
• A Population of Compact Elliptical Galaxies Detected with the Virtual Observatory
• The HST/ACS Coma Cluster Survey: V - Compact Stellar Systems in the Coma Cluster
• A Revised Calibration of the Virial Mass Estimator for Black Holes in Active Galaxies Based on Single-epoch H$\beta$ Spectra
• The Sizes of Early-type Galaxies
• Detection of the "Active" Nucleus of M32
• Signatures of the M31-M32 Galactic Collision
• Tidal streams in newly discovered M32 analogues: evidence for the stripping scenario
• Discovery of two M32 twins in Abell 1689
• Isolated compact elliptical galaxies: Stellar systems that ran away
• An isolated, compact early-type galaxy with a diffuse stellar component: merger origin?
• Discovery of an isolated compact elliptical galaxy in the field

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Implications for the origin of dwarf early-type galaxies: a detailed look at the isolated rotating dwarf early-type galaxy CG 611, with ramifications for the Fundamental Plane's (S_K)^2 kinematic scaling and the spin-ellipticity diagram
• A search for active galactic nuclei in low-mass compact galaxies
• Low-mass compact elliptical galaxies: spatially-resolved stellar populations and kinematics with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager
• A consistency-test for determining whether ultra-compact dwarf galaxies could be the remnant nuclei of threshed galaxies
• Compact elliptical galaxies in different local environments: a mixture of galaxies with different origins?
• Compact elliptical galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei in isolated environment
• SDSS J122958.84+000138.0: A Compact, Optically red galaxy