Evidence for a Young Stellar Population in Nearby Type 1 Active Galaxies

Abstract

To understand the physical origin of the close connection between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, it is vital to investigate star formation properties in active galaxies. Using a large dataset of nearby type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with detailed structural decomposition based on high-resolution optical images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope, we study the correlation between black hole mass and bulge luminosity and the (Kormendy) relation between bulge effective radius and surface brightness. In both relations, the bulges of type 1 AGNs tend to be more luminous than those of inactive galaxies with the same black hole mass or the same bulge size. This suggests that the central regions of AGN host galaxies have characteristically lower mass-to-light ratios than inactive galaxies, most likely due to the presence of a younger stellar population in active systems. In addition, the degree of luminosity excess appears to be proportional to the accretion rate of the AGN, revealing a physical connection between stellar growth and black hole growth. Adopting a simple toy model for the increase of stellar mass and black hole mass, we show that the fraction of young stellar population flattens out toward high accretion rates, possibly reflecting the influence of AGN-driven feedback.

To appear in ApJ

References in corpus (16)

• Structural Properties of Pseudo-Bulges, Classical Bulges and Elliptical Galaxies: an SDSS Perspective
• The Structure of Classical Bulges And Pseudobulges: The Link Between Pseudobulges And Sersic Index
• SDSS Standard Star Catalog for Stripe 82: the Dawn of Industrial 1% Optical Photometry
• The Mean Star Formation Rate of X-ray selected Active Galaxies and its Evolution from z=2.5: Results from PEP-Herschel
• The Evolution of AGN Host Galaxies: From Blue to Red and the Influence of Large-Scale Structures
• Mean Spectral Energy Distributions and Bolometric Corrections for Luminous Quasars
• The Black Hole Mass Scale of Classical and Pseudo Bulges in Active Galaxies
• Aromatic Features in AGN: Star-Forming Infrared Luminosity Function of AGN Host Galaxies
• Nuclear 11.3$\mu$m PAH emission in local active galactic nuclei
• The Origin of the Intrinsic Scatter in the Relation Between Black Hole Mass and Bulge Luminosity for Nearby Active Galaxies
• Dust-Corrected Colors Reveal Bimodality in AGN Host Galaxy Colors at z~1
• The host galaxies of X-ray selected Active Galactic Nuclei to z=2.5: Structure, star-formation and their relationships from CANDELS and Herschel/PACS
• Decomposition of the Host Galaxies of Active Galactic Nuclei Using Hubble Space Telescope Images
• Stellar Photometric Structures of the Host Galaxies of Nearby Type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei
• What produces the far-infrared/submm emission in the most luminous QSOs?
• Local Swift-BAT active galactic nuclei prefer circumnuclear star formation

Cited by in corpus (14)

• AGN Feedback and Star Formation of Quasar Host Galaxies: Insights from the Molecular Gas
• Evolutionary Paths of Active Galactic Nuclei and Their Host Galaxies
• The Interplay Between Star Formation and Black Hole Accretion in Nearby Active Galaxies
• The Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey. IX. Classification of Bulge Types and Statistical Properties of Pseudo Bulges
• The Diverse Morphology, Stellar Population, and Black Hole Scaling Relations of the Host Galaxies of Nearby Quasars
• The Role of Major Mergers and Nuclear Star Formation in Nearby Obscured Quasars
• The Star-forming Main Sequence of the Host Galaxies of Low-redshift Quasars
• A Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Survey of Low-Redshift Swift-BAT Active Galaxies
• Enhanced Star Formation Efficiency in the Central Regions of Nearby Quasars Hosts
• Mid-infrared Variability of Low-redshift Active Galactic Nuclei : Constraints on a Hot Dust Component with a Variable Covering Factor
• Compact Molecular Gas Distribution in Quasar Host Galaxies
• Lack of Correlations between Cold Molecular Gas and AGN Properties in Type 1 AGNs at $z\lesssim 0.5$
• The miniJPAS Survey: The radial distribution of star formation rates in faint X-ray active galactic nuclei
• Mid-infrared Variability-based AGN Selection using the Multi-epoch Photometric Data from WISE