A complete census of AGN and their hosts from optical surveys?

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of optical surveys in capturing the diversity of active galactic nuclei and their host galaxies, especially dusty and disturbed types, by comparing optical and mid-infrared diagnostics.

Contribution

It compares optical and mid-infrared diagnostics for various galaxy populations to assess the completeness of optical surveys in studying black hole-galaxy co-evolution.

Findings

Optical and mid-IR diagnostics show partial agreement in identifying AGN.

Optical surveys may miss dusty, disturbed galaxies hosting AGN.

The study highlights limitations and complementarities of optical surveys.

Abstract

Large optical surveys provide an unprecedented census of galaxies in the local Universe, forming an invaluable framework into which more detailed studies of objects can be placed. But how useful are optical surveys for understanding the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies, given their limited wavelength coverage, selection criteria, and depth? In this conference paper I present work-in-progress comparing optical and mid-IR diagnostics of three "unusual" low redshift populations (luminous Seyferts, dusty Balmer-strong AGN, ULIRGs) with a set of ordinary star-forming galaxies from the SDSS. I address the questions: How well do the mid-infrared and optical diagnostics of star formation and AGN strength agree? To what extent do optical surveys allow us to include extreme, dusty, morphologically disturbed galaxies in our "complete" census of black hole-galaxy co-evolution?