No more active galactic nuclei in clumpy disks than in smooth galaxies at z ∼ 2 in CANDELS/3D-HST
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 525 Davey Lab, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
- University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Irfu/Service d'Astrophysique, CEA-Saclay, Orme des Merisiers, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex (France)
- Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 500 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States)
- Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904 (Israel)
- California Institute of Technology, MC 105-24, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5110 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520 (United States)
We use CANDELS imaging, 3D-HST spectroscopy, and Chandra X-ray data to investigate if active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are preferentially fueled by violent disk instabilities funneling gas into galaxy centers at 1.3 < z < 2.4. We select galaxies undergoing gravitational instabilities using the number of clumps and degree of patchiness as proxies. The CANDELS visual classification system is used to identify 44 clumpy disk galaxies, along with mass-matched comparison samples of smooth and intermediate morphology galaxies. We note that despite being mass-matched and having similar star formation rates, the smoother galaxies tend to be smaller disks with more prominent bulges compared to the clumpy galaxies. The lack of smooth extended disks is probably a general feature of the z ∼ 2 galaxy population, and means we cannot directly compare with the clumpy and smooth extended disks observed at lower redshift. We find that z ∼ 2 clumpy galaxies have slightly enhanced AGN fractions selected by integrated line ratios (in the mass-excitation method), but the spatially resolved line ratios indicate this is likely due to extended phenomena rather than nuclear AGNs. Meanwhile, the X-ray data show that clumpy, smooth, and intermediate galaxies have nearly indistinguishable AGN fractions derived from both individual detections and stacked non-detections. The data demonstrate that AGN fueling modes at z ∼ 1.85—whether violent disk instabilities or secular processes—are as efficient in smooth galaxies as they are in clumpy galaxies.
- OSTI ID:
- 22370568
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 793, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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