HST IMAGING OF FADING AGN CANDIDATES. I. HOST-GALAXY PROPERTIES AND ORIGIN OF THE EXTENDED GAS

We present narrow- and medium-band Hubble Space Telescope imaging, with additional supporting ground-based imaging, spectrophotometry, and Fabry-Perot interferometric data, for eight galaxies identified as hosting a fading active galactic nucleus (AGN). This paper focuses on the host-galaxy properti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astronomical journal 2015-05, Vol.149 (5), p.1-23
Main Authors: Keel, William C, Maksym, W Peter, Bennert, Vardha N, Lintott, Chris J, Chojnowski, S Drew, Moiseev, Alexei, Smirnova, Aleksandrina, Schawinski, Kevin, Urry, C Megan, Evans, Daniel A, Pancoast, Anna, Scott, Bryan, Showley, Charles, Flatland, Kelsi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Active galactic nuclei
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
BRIGHTNESS
Clouds
COSMIC DUST
FABRY-PEROT INTERFEROMETER
Fading
FINE STRUCTURE
Galactic winds
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
Imaging
IONIZATION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
LUMINOSITY
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
METALLICITY
MORPHOLOGY
Origins
ROTATION
SPECTROPHOTOMETRY
STAR CLUSTERS
TELESCOPES
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Summary:We present narrow- and medium-band Hubble Space Telescope imaging, with additional supporting ground-based imaging, spectrophotometry, and Fabry-Perot interferometric data, for eight galaxies identified as hosting a fading active galactic nucleus (AGN). This paper focuses on the host-galaxy properties and origin of the gas. In every galaxy, we identify evidence of ongoing or past interactions, including tidal tails, shells, and warped or chaotic dust structures; a similarly selected sample of obscured AGNs with extended ionized clouds shares this high incidence of disturbed morphologies. We find only a few sets of young star clusters potentially triggered by AGN outflows. Overall, we find that the sample of fading AGNs occur in interacting and merging systems, that the very extended ionized gas is composed of tidal debris rather than galactic winds, and that these host systems are bulge-dominated and show no strong evidence of triggered star formation in luminous clusters.
ISSN:1538-3881
0004-6256
1538-3881
DOI:10.1088/0004-6256/149/5/155