Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Mar 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50339s&link_type=abstract
Spitzer Proposal ID #50339
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The well-known correlation between the black hole mass and the stellar velocity dispersion in bulge-dominated galaxies has fueled numerous speculations that black hole growth and the build-up of galaxies go hand in hand and that perhaps the presence of a bulge is necessary for a black hole to grow. Indeed, prior to Spitzer, the vast majority of actively growing black holes(AGN) in the local Universe were found in galaxies with prominent bulges. However, these studies are based on optical spectroscopic studies, which can be severely limited in the study of bulgeless galaxies, where a putative AGN is likely to be both energetically weak and deeply embedded in the center of a dusty late-type spiral. Remarkably, we have discovered using the limited set of Spitzer observations currently available, that AGN in late-type optically normal galaxies do exist and that Spitzer high resolution spectroscopy is the only way to find them. However, most IR spectroscopic studies have targeted infrared luminous and ultraluminous galaxies which are virtually all disturbed interacting systems. Only a handful of IRS observations of extremely late-type purely isolated galaxies exist. To address this serious deficiency, we propose a systematic search for potentially weak and obscured AGN using high resolution IRS staring observations of a unique, statistically significant sample of definitively bulgeless and purely isolated galaxies. We will: 1) determine the fraction of AGN in bulgeless galaxies 2) compare this fraction to that found in early-type and interacting galaxies based on previous studies, 3) determine if the incidence of AGN activity, the AGN's luminosity, or black hole mass, is correlated with the implied dark matter or disk mass. No such IR study has ever been conducted, leaving a glaring hole in our understanding of one of the most fundamental questions in extragalactic astronomy today.
Abel Nick
Boeker Torsten
Dudik Rachel
Gliozzi Mario
Heckman Tim
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