Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21541112m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #411.12; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.241
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We compare mid-IR emission-lines properties, from high-resolution Spitzer IRS spectra,of a statistically-complete hard X-ray (14-195 keV) selected sample of nearby (z < 0.05) AGN detected by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) aboard Swift. The luminosity distribution for the mid-infrared emission-lines, [O IV] 25.89 μm, [Ne II] 12.81μm , [Ne III] 15.56 μm and [Ne V] μm, and hard X-ray show no differences between Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 populations, although six newly discovered BAT AGN are shown to be under-luminous in [O IV], most likely the result of dust extinction in the host galaxy. The correlations between all the mid-infrared emission lines and BAT luminosities are statistically significant. The mid-infrared emission line fluxes are highly correlated, with the worst correlations for [Ne V]-[Ne II] and [O IV]-[Ne II], as a result of enhanced [Ne II] in some sources due to nuclear stellar activity, however the tightness of these mid-infrared correlations suggests that the emission lines primarily arise in gas ionized by the AGN. We also compared the mid-IR emission-lines in the BAT AGNs with those from published studies of star-forming galaxies and LINERs. We found that [Ne III] an [O IV] lines do not unambiguously identify AGNs as stand-along diagnostics, however the BAT AGNs fall into a distinctive region when comparing the [Ne III]/[Ne II] and the [O IV]/[Ne III] quantities. While it is likely that detection of [Ne V] indicates the presence of an AGN, the [Ne V] line is weak compared to [O IV] and may not be detected in weak AGN. We suggest that a composite method using [Ne II], [Ne III], and [O IV] provides a more robust diagnostic.
Armus Lee
Berghea Ciprian T.
Dudik Rachel P.
Engle Kimberly
Kraemer Stephan
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