The AGN Luminosity Fraction in Merging Galaxies

Abstract

Galaxy mergers are key events in galaxy evolution, often causing massive starbursts and fueling active galactic nuclei (AGN). In these highly dynamic systems, it is not yet precisely known how much starbursts and AGN respectively contribute to the total luminosity, at what interaction stages they occur, and how long they persist. Here we estimate the fraction of the bolometric infrared (IR) luminosity that can be attributed to AGN by measuring and modeling the full ultraviolet to far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in up to 33 broad bands for 24 merging galaxies with the Code for Investigating Galaxy Emission. In addition to a sample of 12 confirmed AGN in late-stage mergers, found in the $Infrared$ $Array$ $Satellite$ Revised Bright Galaxy Sample or Faint Source Catalog, our sample includes a comparison sample of 12 galaxy mergers from the $Spitzer$ Interacting Galaxies Survey, mostly early-stage. We perform identical SED modeling of simulated mergers to validate our methods, and we supplement the SED data with mid-IR spectra of diagnostic lines obtained with $Spitzer$ InfraRed Spectrograph. The estimated AGN contributions to the IR luminosities vary from system to system from 0% up to 91% but are significantly greater in the later-stage, more luminous mergers, consistent with what is known about galaxy evolution and AGN triggering.

arXiv comment26 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (78)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2
• The Dust Content and Opacity of Actively Star-Forming Galaxies
• The Global Schmidt Law in Star Forming Galaxies
• Simulating the joint evolution of quasars, galaxies and their large-scale distribution
• Starburst99: Synthesis Models for Galaxies with Active Star Formation
• Herschel Space Observatory - An ESA facility for far-infrared and submillimetre astronomy
• The Spitzer Space Telescope Mission
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• The SIMBAD astronomical database
• The Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope
• What Powers Ultra-luminous IRAS Galaxies?
• An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function
• The IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (RBGS)
• Cosmological Simulations with TreeSPH
• Mid-Infrared Selection of Active Galaxies
• Mid-Infrared Selection of AGN with the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. I. Characterizing WISE-Selected AGN in COSMOS
• Galaxy Zoo 2: detailed morphological classifications for 304,122 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The 70 Month Swift-BAT All-Sky Hard X-Ray Survey
• Revisiting the Infrared Spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei with a New Torus Emission Model
• Star Formation and Dust Attenuation Properties in Galaxies from a Statistical UV-to-FIR Analysis
• The effect of galaxy mass ratio on merger--driven starbursts
• Dust Emission from Active Galactic Nuclei
• The SMART Data Analysis Package for the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Observations of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies with the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope II: The IRAS Bright Galaxy Sample
• A Two-Parameter Model for the Infrared/Submillimeter/Radio Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies and AGN
• Optical and Near-Infrared Imaging of the IRAS 1-Jy Sample of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies: II. The Analysis
• Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics in Astrophysics
• CASSIS: The Cornell Atlas of Spitzer/IRS Sources
• The Mean Star Formation Rate of X-ray selected Active Galaxies and its Evolution from z=2.5: Results from PEP-Herschel
• Sunrise: Polychromatic Dust Radiative Transfer in Arbitrary Geometries
• Modelling the Pan-Spectral Energy Distribution of Starburst Galaxies: IV The Controlling Parameters of the Starburst SED
• Constraining the properties of AGN host galaxies with Spectral Energy Distribution modeling
• Spectral Mapping Reconstruction of Extended Sources
• What Does a Submillimeter Galaxy Selection Actually Select? The Dependence of Submillimeter Flux Density on Star Formation Rate and Dust Mass
• Submillimetre galaxies in a hierarchical universe: number counts, redshift distribution, and implications for the IMF
• Spitzer's Contribution to the AGN Population
• The Herschel Comprehensive (U)LIRG Emission Survey (HerCULES): CO Ladders, fine structure lines, and neutral gas cooling
• An XMM-Newton hard X-ray survey of ULIRGs
• The total infrared luminosity may significantly overestimate the star formation rate of recently quenched galaxies
• Host galaxies of luminous z$\sim$0.6 quasars: Major mergers are not prevalent at the highest AGN luminosities
• Improving the Estimation of Star formation Rates and Stellar Population Ages of High-redshift Galaxies from Broadband Photometry
• Should we believe the results of UV-mm galaxy SED modelling?
• The imprint of rapid star formation quenching on the spectral energy distributions of galaxies
• Galaxy mergers on a moving mesh: a comparison with smoothed-particle hydrodynamics
• Determining the stellar masses of submillimetre galaxies: the critical importance of star formation histories
• Late-stage galaxy mergers in COSMOS to z~1
• Far-infrared line spectra of active galaxies from the Herschel/PACS Spectrometer: the complete database
• The Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey: A High-Resolution Spectroscopy Anthology
• The Incidence of Active Galactic Nuclei in Pure Disk Galaxies: The Spitzer View
• Correlation between Galaxy Mergers and Luminous AGN
• LOFAR-Boötes: Properties of high- and low-excitation radio galaxies at $0.5<z<2.0$
• Updated 34-Band Photometry for the SINGS/KINGFISH Samples of Nearby Galaxies
• Global Star Formation Rates and Dust Emission Over the Galaxy Interaction Sequence
• Ionized gas kinematics of galaxies in the CALIFA survey I: Velocity fields, kinematic parameters of the dominant component, and presence of kinematically distinct gaseous systems
• Testing the AGN-Starburst Connection in Seyfert Galaxies
• On the LINER nuclear obscuration, Compton-thickness and the existence of the dusty torus; Clues from Spitzer/IRS spectra
• Deriving star formation histories from photometry using energy balance spectral energy distribution modelling
• Modeling Mid-Infrared Diagnostics of Obscured Quasars and Starbursts
• Exploring the Connection Between Star Formation and AGN Activity in the Local Universe
• Recalibrating the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) W4 Filter
• Herschel observations and a model for IRAS 08572+3915: a candidate for the most luminous infrared galaxy in the local (z < 0.2) Universe
• The Revised IRAS-FSC Redshift Catalogue (RIFSCz)
• Anomalous Silicate Dust Emission in the Type 1 LINER Nucleus of M81
• Optical imaging for the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. Data release and notes on interacting galaxies
• Molecular gas heating in Arp 299
• Simulated Galaxy Interactions as Probes of Merger Spectral Energy Distributions
• Radio continuum properties of luminous infrared galaxies. Identifying the presence of an AGN in the radio
• Constraints on Feedback in the local Universe: The relation between star formation and AGN activity in early type galaxies
• Disentangling star formation and AGN activity in powerful infrared luminous radio galaxies at 1<z<4
• The far infra-red SEDs of main sequence and starburst galaxies
• What shapes the far-infrared spectral energy distributions of galaxies?
• The 9 and 18 Micron Luminosity Function of Various Types of Galaxies with AKARI: Implication for the Dust Torus Structure of AGN
• Unveiling the physics of low luminosity AGN through X-ray variability: LINER versus Seyfert 2
• On the probability of major-axis precession in triaxial ellipsoidal potentials
• The Contribution of AGN and Star-Forming Galaxies to the Mid-Infrared as Revealed by their Spectral Energy Distributions

Cited by in corpus (12)

• X-ray flux in the SED modelling: An application of X-CIGALE in the XMM-XXL field
• Dust-Enshrouded AGN can Dominate Host-Galaxy-Scale Cold-Dust Emission
• The X-ray View of Merger-Induced AGN Activity at Low Redshift
• A Multiwavelength Study of Active Galactic Nuclei in Post-Merger Remnants
• The AGN contribution to the UV-FIR luminosities of interacting galaxies and its role in identifying the Main Sequence
• Star formation in far-IR AGN and non-AGN galaxies in the green valley. II. Morphological analysis
• The "Red Radio Ring": Ionised and Molecular Gas in a Starburst/Active Galactic Nucleus at $z\sim 2.55$
• Revealing the differences in the SMBH accretion rate distributions of starburst and non-starburst galaxies
• Investigation of Stellar Kinematics and Ionized gas Outflows in Local (U)LIRGs
• Central star formation in double-peak gas rich radio galaxies
• The viewing angle in AGN SED models, a data-driven analysis
• Systematic Study of the Inner Structure of Molecular Tori in Nearby U/LIRGs using Velocity Decomposition of CO Rovibrational Absorption Lines