Do AGN triggering mechanisms vary with radio power? II. The importance of mergers as a function of radio power and optical luminosity

Abstract

Investigation of the triggering mechanisms of radio AGN is important for improving our general understanding of galaxy evolution. In the first paper in this series, detailed morphological analysis of high-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs) with intermediate radio powers suggested that the importance of triggering via galaxy mergers and interactions increases strongly with AGN radio power and weakly with optical emission-line luminosity. Here, we use an online classification interface to expand our morphological analysis to a much larger sample of 155 active galaxies (3CR radio galaxies, radio-intermediate HERGs and Type 2 quasars) that covers a broad range in both 1.4 GHz radio power and [OIII]$\lambda$5007 emission-line luminosity. All active galaxy samples are found to exhibit excesses in their rates of morphological disturbance relative to 378 stellar-mass- and redshift-matched non-active control galaxies classified randomly and blindly alongside them. These excesses are highest for the 3CR HERGs (4.7$\sigma$) and Type 2 quasar hosts (3.7$\sigma$), supporting the idea that galaxy mergers provide the dominant triggering mechanism for these subgroups. When the full active galaxy sample is considered, there is clear evidence to suggest that the enhancement in the rate of disturbance relative to the controls increases strongly with [OIII]$\lambda$5007 emission-line luminosity but not with 1.4 GHz radio power. Evidence that the dominant AGN host types change from early-type galaxies at high radio powers to late-type galaxies at low radio powers is also found, suggesting that triggering by secular, disk-based processes holds more importance for lower-power radio AGN.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS. 21 pages, 11 figures. Supplementary information will be available online with the published journal article (also available from the corresponding author by request)

References in corpus (105)

• Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003
• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• On the variation of the Initial Mass Function
• The Host Galaxies of AGN
• The many lives of active galactic nuclei: cooling flows, black holes and the luminosities and colours of galaxies
• Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies
• Observational Evidence of AGN Feedback
• The broken hierarchy of galaxy formation
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions
• Advection-Dominated Accretion: A Self-Similar Solution
• Introducing the Illustris Project: Simulating the coevolution of dark and visible matter in the Universe
• The USNO-B Catalog
• Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
• Advection-Dominated Accretion: Underfed Black Holes and Neutron Stars
• A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies: I. Galaxy Mergers & Quasar Activity
• Hot Accretion Flows Around Black Holes
• Galaxy Zoo : Morphologies derived from visual inspection of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Physical Models of Galaxy Formation in a Cosmological Framework
• The Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe
• The Pan-STARRS1 Photometric System
• 2MASS Extended Source Catalog: Overview and Algorithms
• Present-Day Growth of Black Holes and Bulges: the SDSS Perspective
• The host galaxies of radio-loud AGN: mass dependencies, gas cooling and AGN feedback
• Galaxy Zoo 1 : Data Release of Morphological Classifications for nearly 900,000 galaxies
• Powerful Outflows and Feedback from Active Galactic Nuclei
• On the fundamental dichotomy in the local radio-AGN population: accretion, evolution, and host galaxy properties
• Quasars, their host galaxies, and their central black holes
• The relation between accretion rate and jet power in X-ray luminous elliptical galaxies
• How Do Massive Black Holes Get Their Gas?
• Cool Outflows in Galaxies and their Implications
• On the Estimation of Confidence Intervals for Binomial Population Proportions in Astronomy: The Simplicity and Superiority of the Bayesian Approach
• Chaotic cold accretion onto black holes
• The Absolute Magnitude of the Sun in Several Filters
• The role of black holes in galaxy formation and evolution
• The bulk of the black hole growth since z~1 occurs in a secular universe: No major merger-AGN connection
• CANDELS: Constraining the AGN-Merger Connection with Host Morphologies at z~2
• Hot and cold gas accretion and feedback in radio-loud active galaxies
• Major Galaxy Mergers Only Trigger the Most Luminous AGN
• Candidate Type II Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: I. Selection and Optical Properties of a Sample at 0.3<Z<0.83
• Radio sources in the 6dFGS: Local luminosity functions at 1.4 GHz for star-forming galaxies and radio-loud AGN
• Fast neutral outflows in powerful radio galaxies: a major source of feedback in massive galaxies
• Space density of optically-selected type 2 quasars
• Narrow-line region gas kinematics of 24,264 optically-selected AGN: the radio connection
• The Frequency of Tidal Features Associated with Nearby Luminous Elliptical Galaxies from a Statistically Complete Sample
• Semi-Analytic Galaxy Evolution (SAGE): Model Calibration and Basic Results
• Radio sources in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey - II. Local radio luminosity functions for AGN and star-forming galaxies at 1.4 GHz
• An optical spectroscopic survey of the 3CR sample of radio galaxies with z<0.3. II. Spectroscopic classes and accretion modes in radio-loud AGN
• The fast molecular outflow in the Seyfert galaxy IC5063 as seen by ALMA
• The LoTSS view of radio AGN in the local Universe. The most massive galaxies are always switched on
• Radio Jets Clearing the Way Through a Galaxy: Watching Feedback in Action
• A definitive merger-AGN connection at z~0 with CFIS: mergers have an excess of AGN and AGN hosts are more frequently disturbed
• Cold, clumpy accretion onto an active supermassive black hole
• Morphologies of z~0.7 AGN Host Galaxies in CANDELS: No trend of merger incidence with AGN luminosity
• Prevalence of radio jets associated with galactic outflows and feedback from quasars
• Evidence for Merger Remnants in Early-Type Host Galaxies of Low-Redshift QSOs
• Are Compton-Thick AGN the Missing Link Between Mergers and Black Hole Growth?
• Radio AGN in the local universe: unification, triggering and evolution
• The host galaxies of luminous quasars
• THELI -- Convenient reduction of any optical, near- and mid-infrared imaging data
• A Ten Billion Solar Mass Outflow of Molecular Gas Launched by Radio Bubbles in the Abell 1835 Brightest Cluster Galaxy
• Effect of the interactions and environment on nuclear activity
• A Deep HST H-Band Imaging Survey of Massive Gas-Rich Mergers. II. The QUEST PG QSOs
• Host galaxies of luminous z$\sim$0.6 quasars: Major mergers are not prevalent at the highest AGN luminosities
• An optical spectroscopic survey of the 3CR sample of radio galaxies with z<0.3. I. Presentation of the data
• Do the Most Massive Black Holes at $z=2$ Grow via Major Mergers?
• Are luminous radio-loud active galactic nuclei triggered by galaxy interactions?
• Chaotic cold accretion on to black holes in rotating atmospheres
• Faint Tidal Features in Galaxies within the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Wide Fields
• The local radio-galaxy population at 20 GHz
• Driving massive molecular gas flows in central cluster galaxies with AGN feedback
• Low-Luminosity Accretion in Black Hole X-ray Binaries and Active Galactic Nuclei
• The optical morphologies of the 2Jy sample of radio galaxies: evidence for galaxy interactions
• The AGN fraction - velocity dispersion relation in clusters of galaxies
• Storm in a "Teacup": a radio-quiet quasar with ~10kpc radio-emitting bubbles and extreme gas kinematics
• The link between accretion mode and environment in radio-loud active galaxies
• Major mergers are not the dominant trigger for high-accretion AGNs at z = 2
• AGN-driven outflows and the AGN feedback efficiency in young radio galaxies
• Evidence for Merger-Driven Growth in Luminous, High-z, Obscured AGN in the CANDELS/COSMOS Field
• Close entrainment of massive molecular gas flows by radio bubbles in the central galaxy of Abell 1795
• The Close AGN Reference Survey (CARS). A massive multi-phase outflow impacting the edge-on galaxy HE1353-1917
• Correlation between Galaxy Mergers and Luminous AGN
• Galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - XII: The fuelling mechanism of low excitation radio-loud AGN
• The importance of galaxy interactions in triggering type II quasar activity
• The environments of luminous radio galaxies and type-2 quasars
• The Origin of Faint Tidal Features Around Galaxies in the RESOLVE Survey
• Jet-driven outflows of ionised gas in the nearby radio galaxy 3C293
• Investigating the Effect of Galaxy Interactions on AGN Enhancement at $0.5<z<3.0$
• The Growth of Black Holes: Insights From Obscured Active Galaxies
• Radio-loud AGN: is there a link between luminosity and cluster environment?
• A comparison of black hole growth in galaxy mergers with Gasoline and Ramses
• Questions and challenges of what powers galactic outflows in active galactic nuclei
• The origin of the infrared emission in radio galaxies. III. Analysis of 3CRR objects
• Towards a comprehensive picture of powerful quasars, their host galaxies and quasar winds at z ~ 0.5
• The dust masses of powerful radio galaxies: clues to the triggering of their activity
• An optical spectroscopic survey of the 3CR sample of radio galaxies with z<0.3. III. Completing the sample
• Galaxy wide radio induced feedback in a radio quiet quasar
• The Role of Major Mergers and Nuclear Star Formation in Nearby Obscured Quasars
• ALMA observations of PKS 1549-79: a case of feeding and feedback in a young radio quasar
• Do AGN triggering mechanisms vary with radio power? I.Optical morphologies of radio-intermediate HERGs
• The Effect of Minor and Major Mergers on the Evolution of Low Excitation Radio Galaxies
• The host galaxies of luminous type 2 AGN at $z\sim$0.3-0.4
• The Deep Optical Imaging of the Extended Groth Strip
• Near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope polarimetry of a complete sample of narrow-line radio galaxies
• HST and Spitzer point source detection and optical extinction in powerful narrow-line radio galaxies

Cited by in corpus (20)

• The diverse cold molecular gas contents, morphologies, and kinematics of type-2 quasars as seen by ALMA
• Galaxy interactions are the dominant trigger for local type 2 quasars
• Interacting galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulations -- IV: Enhanced Supermassive Black Hole Accretion Rates in Post-Merger Galaxies
• Spatially resolved evidence of the impact of quasar driven outflows on recent star formation : The case of Mrk 34
• Warm molecular and ionized gas kinematics in the Type-2 quasar J0945+1737
• The interconnection between galaxy mergers, AGN activity and rapid quenching of star formation in simulated post-merger galaxies
• Dust and Power: Unravelling the merger - active galactic nucleus connection in the second half of cosmic history
• Quantifying the cool ISM in radio AGNs: evidence for late-time re-triggering by galaxy mergers and interactions
• Obscured AGN enhancement in galaxy pairs at cosmic noon: evidence from a probabilistic treatment of photometric redshifts
• Selection of powerful radio galaxies with machine learning
• Seeing the forest and the trees: a radio investigation of the ULIRG Mrk 273
• The global energetics of radio AGN kinetic feedback in the local universe
• UNIONS Optical Identifications for VLASS Radio Sources in the Euclid Sky (UNVEIL) I. A Catalog of ~146,000 Radio Galaxies up to z~5
• Compact Steep Spectrum Radio Sources with Enhanced Star Formation are Smaller than $10$kpc
• A study of interacting galaxies from the Arp-Madore Catalogue: Triggering of star formation and nuclear activity
• A precessing jet from an active galactic nucleus drives gas outflow from a disk galaxy
• The major merger-active galactic nucleus connection up to the cosmic noon
• MIGHTEE: The dark matter haloes, duty cycle and mechanical feedback from radio-AGN up to $z\sim 2.5$
• Chandra X-ray Observatory study of the X-ray emission of PKS 0023-26 and comparison with recent ALMA results
• HI gas in the rejuvenated radio galaxy PKS 2014-55