The Environment of Active Galaxies in the SDSS-DR4

Abstract

We study the environment of active galaxies and compare it with that of star forming and normal galaxies. We extracted from the Fourth Data Release (DR4) of the Sloan Digitaly Sky Survey (SDSS) the galaxies in the redshift range 0.05 \le z \le 0.095 and with M(r) \le -20.0 (that is M* + 1.45). Emission line ratios and/or widths are used to separate Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) from Star-Forming Galaxies (SFGs); AGN are classified as Seyfert-1 and Seyfert-2 galaxies according to emission line widths. The environmental properties, as defined by a density parameter and the number of companions, are compared for the different types of galaxies, taking into account the morphological type of the host galaxies. We find no difference in the large-scale environment of Seyfert-1 and Seyfert-2 galaxies; however, a larger fraction of Seyfert-2 (~2%) than Seyfert-1 (~1%) is found in systems which are smaller than r_{max} \le 100 kpc, mainly in low-density environments (pairs or triplets); for comparison, this fraction is ~2% for star forming galaxies and ~1% for normal galaxies. We find no evidence for a relation between large-scale environment properties and activity. If activity and environment are related, this more likely occurs on small scales (e.g. galaxy interaction, merging).

arXiv comment17 pages, 10 figures, accepted by A&A

References in corpus (32)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Theoretical Modeling of Starburst Galaxies
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Spectra and redshifts
• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Photometric Camera
• The Second Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: I. Methods and Results at z=0
• Galaxy Star-Formation as a Function of Environment in the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Luminosity Function of Galaxies in SDSS Commissioning Data
• An Efficient Algorithm for Positioning Tiles in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Estimating Fixed Frame Galaxy Magnitudes in the SDSS
• The Las Campanas Redshift Survey
• Optical and Radio Properties of Extragalactic Sources Observed by the FIRST and SDSS Surveys
• Galaxy ecology: groups and low-density environments in the SDSS and 2dFGRS
• Quantifying the Fragility of Galactic Disks in Minor Mergers
• The Observational Distribution of Internal Velocity Dispersions in Nearby Galaxy Clusters
• The Environment of AGNs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Galaxy Pairs in the 2dF Survey I. Effects of Interactions in the Field
• Colors, magnitudes and velocity dispersions in early-type galaxies: Implications for galaxy ages and metallicities
• Circumnuclear Dust in Nearby Active and Inactive Galaxies. II. Bars, Nuclear Spirals, and the Fueling of Active Galactic Nuclei
• Star Formation in Close Pairs Selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Unified Model & Evolution of Active Galaxies: Implications from a Spectropolarimetric Study
• Circumnuclear stellar population, morphology and environment of Seyfert 2 galaxies: an evolutionary scenario
• The Frequency of Active and Quiescent Galaxies with Companions: Implications for the Feeding of the Nucleus
• Galaxy Groups at 0.3 <= z <= 0.55. I. Group Properties
• The Close Environment of Seyfert Galaxies and Its Implication for Unification Models
• Star Formation in a Complete Spectroscopic Survey of Galaxies
• The Circum-Galactic Environment of Bright IRAS Galaxies
• The luminosity functions and stellar masses of galactic disks and spheroids
• The Evolution of Radio Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift
• Effects of the Environment on the Properties of Seyfert Galaxies
• Active star-forming galaxies in pairs in the 2dF

Cited by in corpus (26)

• Galaxy Pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Star Formation, AGN Fraction, and the Luminosity/Mass-Metallicity Relation
• Galaxy Zoo: Passive Red Spirals
• The Different Physical Mechanisms that Drive the Star-Formation Histories of Giant and Dwarf Galaxies
• The Role of Environment in the Mass-Metallicity Relation
• Properties of galaxies in SDSS Quasar environments at z < 0.2
• Photometric classification of emission line galaxies with Machine Learning methods
• Activity in galactic nuclei of cluster and field galaxies in the local universe
• AGN population in Hickson's Compact Groups. I. Data and Nuclear Activity Classification
• The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: The Red Sequence AGN Fraction and its Environment and Redshift Dependence
• Luminous X-ray AGN in Clusters of Galaxies
• Classification and environmental properties of X-ray selected point-like sources in the XMM-LSS field
• Quasar-Galaxy Clustering through Projected Galaxy Counts at z=0.6-1.2
• Deficiency of Broad Line AGNs in Compact Groups of Galaxies
• Induced nuclear activity in galaxy pairs with different morphologies (E+E), (E+S) and (S+S)
• On the relation between Seyfert 2 accretion rate and environment at z < 0.1
• Dichotomy in host environments and signs of recycled AGN
• Host galaxy and orientation differences between AGN different types
• Nuclear Activity In Isolated Galaxies
• Early Science Result from the Japanese Virtual Observatory: AGN and Galaxy Clustering at z = 0.3 to 3.0
• GLACE survey: OSIRIS/GTC Tuneable Filter H$\alpha$ imaging of the rich galaxy cluster ZwCl 0024.0+1652 at z = 0.395. Part I -- Survey presentation, TF data reduction techniques and catalogue
• The environment of AGNs and the activity degree of their surrounding galaxies
• The relation between galaxy density and radio jet power for 1.4 GHz VLA selected AGN in Stripe 82
• Morphology of Seyfert Galaxies
• Extracting Knowledge From Massive Astronomical Data Sets
• XXL-HSC: Host properties of X-ray detected AGNs in XXL clusters
• Steps towards a map of the nearby universe