Hosts and triggers of AGNs in the Local Universe

¹ CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China
e-mail: ziwen@mail.ustc.edu.cn, whywang@ustc.edu.cn
² School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China
³ Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), UTIAS, Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8583, Japan
⁴ Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-9305, USA
⁵ Key laboratory for Computational Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012, PR China
⁶ College of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, PR China
⁷ Department of Astronomy, and Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China
⁸ Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Received: 17 December 2020
Accepted: 6 March 2021

Abstract

Based on the spectroscopic and shear catalogs for SDSS galaxies in the local Universe, we compared optically selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with control star-forming and quiescent galaxies on galactic and inter-halo scales, and larger. We find that AGNs are preferentially found in two specific stages of galaxy evolution: in the starburst and ‘green valley’ phases. We also find that the stellar population of their host galaxies is quite independent of stellar mass, which is not the case for more typical galaxies. Combining galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy clustering on large scales, we measured the mass of AGN host halos. The typical halo mass is about 10¹² h⁻¹ M_⊙, similar to the characteristic mass in the stellar mass-halo mass relation (SHMR). For a given stellar mass, AGN host galaxies and star-forming galaxies share the same SHMR, while quiescent galaxies have more massive halos. Clustering analyses on halo scales reveals that AGNs are surrounded by a larger number of satellites (with stellar mass down to 1/1000 of the mass of the central galaxy) than star-forming galaxies and that galaxies with a greater stellar velocity dispersion have a greater number of satellites. The number of satellites also increase with halo mass, reaching unity around 10¹² h⁻¹ M_⊙. Our results suggest a scenario in which the interaction of the central galaxy with the satellites triggers an early episode of starburst and AGN activity, followed by multiple AGN cycles driven by the non-axisymmetric structure produced by the interaction. The feedback from the starburst and AGN reduces the amount of cold gas for fueling the central black hole, producing a characteristic halo mass scale, that is, ∼10¹² h⁻¹ M_⊙, where the AGN fraction peaks.