Active Galactic Nuclei in Groups and Clusters of Galaxies: Detection and Host Morphology

TL;DR

This study compares the incidence of X-ray and emission-line selected AGN in galaxy groups and clusters, revealing environment-dependent differences in AGN activity and host galaxy morphology at low redshift.

Contribution

It provides new XMM-Newton observations of low-redshift groups and clusters, demonstrating environment influences AGN fraction and host galaxy properties, especially in early-type galaxies.

Findings

AGN fraction is higher in groups than in clusters.

X-ray and emission-line AGN are largely disjoint populations.

AGN fraction in early-type galaxies is environment-dependent.

Abstract

The incidence and properties of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the field, groups, and clusters can provide new information about how these objects are triggered and fueled, similar to how these environments have been employed to study galaxy evolution. We have obtained new XMM-Newton observations of seven X-ray selected groups and poor clusters with 0.02 < z < 0.06 for comparison with previous samples that mostly included rich clusters and optically-selected groups. Our final sample has ten groups and six clusters in this low-redshift range (split at a velocity dispersion of $\sigma = 500$ km/s). We find that the X-ray selected AGN fraction increases from $f_A(L_X>10^{41}; M_R<M_R^*+1) = 0.047^{+0.023}_{-0.016}$ in clusters to $0.091^{+0.049}_{-0.034}$ for the groups (85% significance), or a factor of two, for AGN above an 0.3-8keV X-ray luminosity of $10^{41}$ erg/s hosted by galaxies more luminous than $M_R^*+1$. The trend is similar, although less significant, for a lower-luminosity host threshold of $M_R = -20$ mag. For many of the groups in the sample we have also identified AGN via standard emission-line diagnostics and find that these AGN are nearly disjoint from the X-ray selected AGN. Because there are substantial differences in the morphological mix of galaxies between groups and clusters, we have also measured the AGN fraction for early-type galaxies alone to determine if the differences are directly due to environment, or indirectly due to the change in the morphological mix. We find that the AGN fraction in early-type galaxies is also lower in clusters $f_{A,n>2.5}(L_X>10^{41}; M_R<M_R^*+1) = 0.048^{+0.028}_{-0.019}$ compared to $0.119^{+0.064}_{-0.044}$ for the groups (92% significance), a result consistent with the hypothesis that the change in AGN fraction is directly connected to environment.