No More Active Galactic Nuclei in Clumpy Disks than in Smooth Galaxies at z ~ 2 in CANDELS/3D-HST*

Authors

Jonathan R. Trump, Pennsylvania State University
Guillermo Barro, University of California - Santa Cruz
Stéphanie Juneau, CEA-Saclay, France
Benjamin J. Weiner, University of Arizona
Bin Luo, Pennsylvania State University
Gabriel B. Brammer, Space Telescope Science Institute
Eric F. Bell, University of Michigan
W. N. Brandt, Pennsylvania State University
Avishai Dekel, Hebrew University, Israel
Yicheng Guo, University of California - Santa Cruz
Philip F. Hopkins, California Institute of Technology
David C. Koo, University of California - Santa Cruz
Dale D. Kocevski, University of KentuckyFollow
Daniel H. McIntosh, University of Missouri - Kansas City
Ivelina Momcheva, Yale University
S. M. Faber, University of California - Santa Cruz
Henry C. Ferguson, Space Telescope Science Institute
Norman A. Grogin, Space Telescope Science Institute
Jeyhan Kartaltepe, Space Telescope Science Institute
Anton M. Koekemoer, Space Telescope Science Institute
Jennifer Lotz, Space Telescope Science Institute
Michael Maseda, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Germany
Mark Mozena, University of California - Santa Cruz
Kirpal Nandra, Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Germany
David J. Rosario, Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Germany
Gergory R. Zeimann, Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

We use CANDELS imaging, 3D-HST spectroscopy, and Chandra X-ray data to investigate if active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are preferentially fueled by violent disk instabilities funneling gas into galaxy centers at 1.3 < z < 2.4. We select galaxies undergoing gravitational instabilities using the number of clumps and degree of patchiness as proxies. The CANDELS visual classification system is used to identify 44 clumpy disk galaxies, along with mass-matched comparison samples of smooth and intermediate morphology galaxies. We note that despite being mass-matched and having similar star formation rates, the smoother galaxies tend to be smaller disks with more prominent bulges compared to the clumpy galaxies. The lack of smooth extended disks is probably a general feature of the z ~ 2 galaxy population, and means we cannot directly compare with the clumpy and smooth extended disks observed at lower redshift. We find that z ~ 2 clumpy galaxies have slightly enhanced AGN fractions selected by integrated line ratios (in the mass-excitation method), but the spatially resolved line ratios indicate this is likely due to extended phenomena rather than nuclear AGNs. Meanwhile, the X-ray data show that clumpy, smooth, and intermediate galaxies have nearly indistinguishable AGN fractions derived from both individual detections and stacked non-detections. The data demonstrate that AGN fueling modes at z ~ 1.85—whether violent disk instabilities or secular processes—are as efficient in smooth galaxies as they are in clumpy galaxies.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-11-2014

Notes/Citation Information

Published in The Astrophysical Journal, v. 793, no. 2, article 101, p. 1-16.

© 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.

Reproduced by permission of the AAS.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/793/2/101

Funding Information

Support was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant 51330 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS 5-26555. J.R.T. and the authors from UCSC also acknowledge support form NASA HST grants GO-12060.10-A and AR-12822.03, Chandra grant G08-9129A, and NSF grant AST-0808133. S.J. acknowledges financial support from the E.C. through an ERC grant StG-257720.

Related Content

This work made use of the Rainbow Cosmological Surveys Database, which is operated by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), partnered with the University of California Observatories at Santa Cruz (UCO/Lick, UCSC).

Repository Citation

Trump, Jonathan R.; Barro, Guillermo; Juneau, Stéphanie; Weiner, Benjamin J.; Luo, Bin; Brammer, Gabriel B.; Bell, Eric F.; Brandt, W. N.; Dekel, Avishai; Guo, Yicheng; Hopkins, Philip F.; Koo, David C.; Kocevski, Dale D.; McIntosh, Daniel H.; Momcheva, Ivelina; Faber, S. M.; Ferguson, Henry C.; Grogin, Norman A.; Kartaltepe, Jeyhan; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Lotz, Jennifer; Maseda, Michael; Mozena, Mark; Nandra, Kirpal; Rosario, David J.; and Zeimann, Gergory R., "No More Active Galactic Nuclei in Clumpy Disks than in Smooth Galaxies at z ~ 2 in CANDELS/3D-HST*" (2014). Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications. 264.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/physastron_facpub/264