DISCOVERY OF FOUR kpc-SCALE BINARY ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Peyton Hall, Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS-51, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
We report the discovery of four kpc-scale binary active galactic nuclei (AGNs). These objects were originally selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey based on double-peaked [O III] {lambda}{lambda}4959, 5007 emission lines in their fiber spectra. The double peaks could result from pairing active supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in a galaxy merger or could be due to bulk motions of narrow-line region gas around a single SMBH. Deep near-infrared (NIR) images and optical slit spectra obtained from the Magellan 6.5 m and the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescopes strongly support the binary SMBH scenario for the four objects. In each system, the NIR images reveal tidal features and double stellar components with a projected separation of several kpc, while optical slit spectra show two Seyfert 2 nuclei spatially coincident with the stellar components, with line-of-sight velocity offsets of a few hundred km s{sup -1}. These objects were drawn from a sample of only 43 objects, demonstrating the efficiency of this technique to find kpc-scale binary AGNs.
- OSTI ID:
- 21448725
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 715, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/715/1/L30; ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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