A Catalog of 71 Coronal Line Galaxies in MaNGA: [NeV] is an Effective AGN Tracer

Abstract

Despite the importance of AGN in galaxy evolution, accurate AGN identification is often challenging, as common AGN diagnostics can be confused by contributions from star formation and other effects (e.g., Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich diagrams). However, one promising avenue for identifying AGNs are ``coronal emission lines" (``CLs"), which are highly ionized species of gas with ionization potentials $\ge$ 100 eV. These CLs may serve as excellent signatures for the strong ionizing continuum of AGN. To determine if CLs are in fact strong AGN tracers, we assemble and analyze the largest catalog of optical CL galaxies using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) catalog. We detect CL emission in 71 MaNGA galaxies, out of the 10,010 unique galaxies from the final MaNGA catalog, with $\ge$ 5$\sigma$ confidence. In our sample, we measure [NeV]$\lambda$3347, $\lambda$3427, [FeVII]$\lambda$3586, $\lambda$3760, $\lambda$6086, and [FeX]$\lambda$6374 emission and crossmatch the CL galaxies with a catalog of AGNs that were confirmed with broad line, X-ray, IR, and radio observations. We find that [NeV] emission, compared to [FeVII] and [FeX] emission, is best at identifying high luminosity AGN. Moreover, we find that the CL galaxies with the least dust extinction yield the most iron CL detections. We posit that the bulk of the iron CLs are destroyed by dust grains in the galaxies with the highest [OIII] luminosities in our sample, and that AGN in the galaxies with low [OIII] luminosities are possibly too weak to be detected using traditional techniques.

21 pages, 6 figures, 8 tables

References in corpus (31)

• The Astropy Project: Sustaining and Growing a Community-oriented Open-source Project and the Latest Major Release (v5.0) of the Core Package
• The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Host Galaxies and Classification of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Overview of the SDSS-IV MaNGA Survey: Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory
• Improving the full spectrum fitting method: accurate convolution with Gauss-Hermite functions
• The Co-Evolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe
• The MAPPINGS III Library of Fast Radiative Shock Models
• The MaNGA Integral Field Unit Fiber Feed System for the Sloan 2.5 m Telescope
• The Data Reduction Pipeline for the SDSS-IV MaNGA IFU Galaxy Survey
• The SDSS-IV MaNGA Sample: Design, Optimization, and Usage Considerations
• SDSS-IV MaNGA IFS Galaxy Survey --- Survey Design, Execution, and Initial Data Quality
• The WISE AGN Catalog
• Spitzer Uncovers Active Galactic Nuclei Missed by Optical Surveys in 7 Late-type Galaxies
• A New Catalogue of Type 1 AGN and its Implication on the AGN Unified Model
• Sizes and Kinematics of Extended Narrow-Line Regions in Luminous Obscured AGN Selected by Broadband Images
• Optical IFU Observations of the Brightest Cluster Galaxy NGC 4696: The Case for a Minor Merger and Shock-excited Filaments
• A Sample of Massive Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies Detected via [Fe X] Coronal Line Emission: Active Galactic Nuclei and/or Tidal Disruption Events
• GOALS-JWST: Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Nucleus of NGC 7469
• High-ionization mid-infrared lines as black hole mass and bolometric luminosity indicators in active galactic nuclei
• Spitzer IRS Spectra of Optically Faint Infrared Sources with Weak Spectral Features
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Identification of active galactic nuclei in optical integral field unit surveys
• A Catalog of 406 AGNs in MaNGA: A Connection between Radio-mode AGN and Star Formation Quenching
• Coronal-Line Forest AGN: the best view of the inner edge of the AGN torus?
• The Diagnostic Potential of JWST in Characterizing Elusive AGNs
• Chemical abundances in Seyfert galaxies -- V. The discovery of shocked emission outside the AGN ionization axis
• Gemini NIFS survey of feeding and feedback in nearby Active Galaxies -- IV. Excitation
• The location and kinematics of the coronal-line emitting regions in AGN
• Fundamental X-ray Corona Parameters of Swift/BAT AGN
• The Past and Future of Mid-Infrared Studies of AGN
• CLASS: Coronal Line Activity Spectroscopic Survey
• Towards a More Complete Optical Census of Active Galactic Nuclei, Via Spatially-Resolved Spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (9)

• MaNGA AGN dwarf galaxies (MAD) -- I. A new sample of AGN in dwarf galaxies with spatially resolved spectroscopy
• BASS. XLIX. Characterization of highly luminous and obscured AGNs: local X-ray and [NeV]$\lambda$3426 emission in comparison with the high-redshift Universe
• Beyond Traditional Diagnostics: Identifying Active Galactic Nuclei with Spectral Energy Distribution Fitting in DESI Data
• Impact of AGN and nuclear star formation on the ISM turbulence of galaxies: Insights from JWST/MIRI spectroscopy
• Emission Line Diagnostics for IMBHs in Dwarf Galaxies: Accounting for BH Seeding and ULX Excitation
• Long Term Reverberation Mapping of Iron Coronal Lines in MKN 110
• Digging deeper into NGC 6868 II: ionized gas and excitation mechanism
• Fast, dust-poor outflows in the local candidate dual AGN MCG-03-34-64 observed with VLT/ERIS
• Nuclear Activity and Host Galaxy Properties of Low-Luminosity AGN Identified from VLA Observations