CHANDRA X-RAY AND HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IMAGING OF OPTICALLY SELECTED KILOPARSEC-SCALE BINARY ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI. II. HOST GALAXY MORPHOLOGY AND AGN ACTIVITY
- Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801 (United States)
- Giant Magellan Telescope Organization, 251 South Lake Avenue, Suite 300 Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Peyton Hall—Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
Binary active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provide clues to how gas-rich mergers trigger and fuel AGNs and how supermassive black hole (SMBH) pairs evolve in a gas-rich environment. While significant effort has been invested in their identification, the detailed properties of binary AGNs and their host galaxies are still poorly constrained. In a companion paper, we examined the nature of ionizing sources in the double nuclei of four kiloparsec-scale binary AGNs with redshifts between 0.1 and 0.2. Here, we present their host galaxy morphology based on F336W ( U -band) and F105W ( Y -band) images taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope . Our targets have double-peaked narrow emission lines and were confirmed to host binary AGNs with follow-up observations. We find that kiloparsec-scale binary AGNs occur in galaxy mergers with diverse morphological types. There are three major mergers with intermediate morphologies and a minor merger with a dominant disk component. We estimate the masses of the SMBHs from their host bulge stellar masses and obtain Eddington ratios for each AGN. Compared with a representative control sample drawn at the same redshift and stellar mass, the AGN luminosities and Eddington ratios of our binary AGNs are similar to those of single AGNs. The U − Y color maps indicate that clumpy star-forming regions could significantly affect the X-ray detection of binary AGNs, e.g., the hardness ratio. Considering the weak X-ray emission in AGNs triggered in merger systems, we suggest that samples of X-ray-selected AGNs may be biased against gas-rich mergers.
- OSTI ID:
- 22666255
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 823; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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CHANDRA X-RAY AND HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IMAGING OF OPTICALLY SELECTED KILOPARSEC-SCALE BINARY ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI. I. NATURE OF THE NUCLEAR IONIZING SOURCES
OBSERVABILITY OF DUAL ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN MERGING GALAXIES