Automated Detection of Double Nuclei Galaxies using GOTHIC and the Discovery of a Large Sample of Dual AGN
arXiv:2011.12177 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stad2117
Abstract
We present a novel algorithm to detect double nuclei galaxies (DNG) called GOTHIC (Graph BOosted iterated HIll Climbing) - that detects whether a given image of a galaxy has two or more closely separated nuclei. Our aim is to detect samples of dual or multiple active galactic nuclei (AGN) in galaxies. Although galaxy mergers are common, the detection of dual AGN is rare. Their detection is very important as they help us understand the formation of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries, SMBH growth and AGN feedback effects in multiple nuclei systems. There is thus a need for an algorithm to do a systematic survey of existing imaging data for the discovery of DNGs and dual AGN. We have tested GOTHIC on a known sample of DNGs and subsequently applied it to a sample of a million SDSS DR16 galaxies lying in the redshift range of 0 to 0.75 approximately, and have available spectroscopic data. We have detected 159 dual AGN in this sample, of which 2 are triple AGN systems. Our results show that dual AGN are not common, and triple AGN even rarer. The color (u-r) magnitude plots of the DNGs indicate that star formation is quenched as the nuclei come closer and as the AGN fraction increases. The quenching is especially prominent for dual/triple AGN galaxies that lie in the extreme end of the red sequence.
Accepted at MNRAS
References in corpus (28)
- The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
- UV Star Formation Rates in the Local Universe
- APOGEE Data and Spectral Analysis from SDSS Data Release 16: Seven Years of Observations Including First Results from APOGEE-South
- AGN Emission Line Diagnostics and the Mass-Metallicity Relation up to Redshift z~2: the Impact of Selection Effects and Evolution
- The Luminosity Dependence of the Galaxy Merger Rate
- Chandra Discovery of a Binary Active Galactic Nucleus in Mrk 739
- Dynamical properties of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies. II. Traces of dynamical evolution and end products of local ultraluminous mergers
- Wandering Black Holes in Bright Disk Galaxy Halos
- Deep learning predictions of galaxy merger stage and the importance of observational realism
- A candidate sub-parsec binary black hole in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 7674
- Convolutional neural network identification of galaxy post-mergers in UNIONS using IllustrisTNG
- Origins and Demographics of Wandering Black Holes
- Unveiling the population of dual- and lensed- AGNs at sub-arcsec separations
- Discovery of a close-separation binary quasar at the heart of a z~0.2 merging galaxy and its implications for low-frequency gravitational waves
- UGC 4211: A Confirmed Dual Active Galactic Nucleus in the Local Universe at 230 pc Nuclear Separation
- Searching for Dual AGN in Galaxies with Double-Peaked Emission Line Spectra using Radio Observations
- A Catalog of 220 Offset and Dual AGNs: Increased AGN Activation in Major Mergers and Separations under 4 kpc
- A quasar-based supermassive black hole binary population model: implications for the gravitational-wave background
- Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey -- XIV. Galaxy mergers do not lie on the Fundamental Metallicity Relation
- Galaxy interactions in IllustrisTNG-100, I: The power and limitations of visual identification
- The combined and respective roles of imaging and stellar kinematics in identifying galaxy merger remnants
- New multiple AGN systems with sub-arcsec separation: confirmation of candidates selected via the novel GMP method
- Double-peak emission line galaxies in the SDSS catalogue. A minor merger sequence
- A Triple AGN in the NGC 7733-7734 Merging Group
- Double-Peaked Emission Lines due to A Radio Outflow in KISSR1219
- A Multi-wavelength Study of the Dual Nuclei in Mrk 212
- The Complex Gaseous and Stellar environments of the nearby dual AGN Mrk 739
- Tracing the Evolution of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies into Radio Galaxies with Low Frequency Radio Observations