Optical Spectroscopy of Luminous Infrared Galaxies: The Nature of the Energy Source

Details Optical Spectroscopy of Luminous Infrared Galaxies: The Nature of the Energy Source Optical Spectroscopy of Luminous Infrared Galaxies: The Nature of the Energy Source

Dec 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992aas...181.5405v&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 181st AAS Meeting, #54.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 24, p.1211

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

A spectroscopic survey of a large sample of luminous infrared galaxies was carried out to determine the primary energy source responsible for ionizing the line-emitting gas in these objects. Long-slit Palomar 5-m spectra covering 3750 -- 8000 Angstroms at a resolution of about 10 Angstroms were obtained of 140 IRAS galaxies, including 80 objects from the IRAS Bright Galaxy Survey of Soifer et al. (1986) and 60 objects selected on the basis of their ``warm'' infrared (60 microns/100microns) colors. The high signal-to-noise ratio of these data allowed us to derive information on the line emission of these objects as well as the underlying stellar population of their host galaxies. Diagnostic diagrams involving a large number of emission-line ratios were used to classify all of the galaxies as ``HII region-like'' or ``AGN-like''. The emission-line spectra of most AGN-like objects were found to be of relatively low ionization level and were therefore classified as LINERs. The [O III] profiles of some of these LINERs are very broad, with widths of up to 1000 km s(-1) (FWHM). There is also a tendency for the emission-line spectrum of the objects in our sample to become more AGN-like at larger infrared luminosity. However, the nature of the line emission appears to depend on the radial distance from the nucleus. These results were combined with our analysis of the stellar absorption features and continuum colors to determine the importance of shock ionization and photoionization by a stellar or non-thermal (AGN) continuum as a function of the infrared luminosity of these galaxies.

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