The AGN Luminosity Fraction in Merging Galaxies

2); (2) University of Arizona Astronomy Department; 3); (3) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Department of Physics; (4) Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics; 5); (5) Leiden Observatory; (6) California Institute of Technology Department of Astronomy; 7; (7) University of Crete Physics Department & Institute of Theoretical Computational Physics

The AGN Luminosity Fraction in Merging Galaxies

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

Re-run · record.json Download PDF Read on arXiv ↗

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 1801.04328 v2 pith:POXEHIL2 submitted 2018-01-12 astro-ph.GA

The AGN Luminosity Fraction in Merging Galaxies

Jeremy Dietrich (1 , 2) , Aaron S. Weiner (1 , 3) , Matthew L.N. Ashby (1) , Christopher C. Hayward (4) , Juan Rafael Mart\'inez-Galarza (1) , Andr\'es F. Ramos Padilla (1

show 33 more authors

5) Lee Rosenthal (6) Howard A. Smith (1) S.P. Willner (1) Andreas Zezas (1 7 8) ((1) Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Cambridge MA (2) University of Arizona Astronomy Department Steward Observatory Tucson AZ (3) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Department of Physics Applied Physics Astronomy Troy NY (4) Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics New York (5) Leiden Observatory Leiden Netherlands (6) California Institute of Technology Department of Astronomy Pasadena CA (7) University of Crete Physics Department & Institute of Theoretical Computational Physics Heraklion Crete Greece (8) Foundation for Research Technology-Hellas Greece)

This is my paper

classification astro-ph.GA

keywords galaxymergerssamplegalaxiesinfraredluminosityevolutionfraction

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved

0 comments

read the original abstract

Galaxy mergers are key events in galaxy evolution, often causing massive starbursts and fueling active galactic nuclei (AGN). In these highly dynamic systems, it is not yet precisely known how much starbursts and AGN respectively contribute to the total luminosity, at what interaction stages they occur, and how long they persist. Here we estimate the fraction of the bolometric infrared (IR) luminosity that can be attributed to AGN by measuring and modeling the full ultraviolet to far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in up to 33 broad bands for 24 merging galaxies with the Code for Investigating Galaxy Emission. In addition to a sample of 12 confirmed AGN in late-stage mergers, found in the $Infrared$ $Array$ $Satellite$ Revised Bright Galaxy Sample or Faint Source Catalog, our sample includes a comparison sample of 12 galaxy mergers from the $Spitzer$ Interacting Galaxies Survey, mostly early-stage. We perform identical SED modeling of simulated mergers to validate our methods, and we supplement the SED data with mid-IR spectra of diagnostic lines obtained with $Spitzer$ InfraRed Spectrograph. The estimated AGN contributions to the IR luminosities vary from system to system from 0% up to 91% but are significantly greater in the later-stage, more luminous mergers, consistent with what is known about galaxy evolution and AGN triggering.

discussion (0)

Forward citations

Cited by 1 Pith paper

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

The PARADIGM Project II: Characterising Nuclear and Diffuse Radio Components in Local U/LIRGs
astro-ph.GA 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 4.0

Multi-scale radio observations of 15 local U/LIRGs decompose emission to show nuclear components contribute ~50% on average while diffuse SF-related emission dominates ~80% of total power, with radio excess linked to ...