Mergers in Double-Peaked [O III] Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution imaging to identify and analyze merging binary AGNs with double-peaked emission lines, revealing their prevalence, morphological disturbances, and implications for black hole scaling relations.

Contribution

First high-resolution near-infrared imaging survey of double-peaked [O III] AGNs, identifying kpc-scale binary AGNs and analyzing their merger fraction and properties.

Findings

8 type-1 and 8 type-2 sources are merging candidates.

Higher merger fraction in type-1 AGNs (47%) than type-2 (24%).

Double-peaked line profiles can be produced by single AGNs, accounting for at least 70%.

Abstract

As a natural consequence of galaxy mergers, binary active galactic nuclei (AGNs) should be commonplace. Nevertheless, observational confirmations are rare, especially for binaries with separations less than ten kpc. Such a system may show two sets of narrow emission lines in a single spectrum owing to the orbital motion of the binary. We have obtained high-resolution near-infrared images of 50 double-peaked [O III] 5007 AGNs with the Keck II laser guide star adaptive optics system. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample is compiled from the literature and consists of 17 type-1 AGNs between 0.18 < z < 0.56 and 33 type-2 AGNs between 0.03 < z < 0.24. The new images reveal eight type-1 and eight type-2 sources that are apparently undergoing mergers. These are strong candidates of kpc-scale binary AGNs, because they show multiple components separated between 0.6 and 12 kpc and often disturbed morphologies. Because most of the type-1s are at higher redshifts than the type-2s, the higher merger fraction of type-1s (47+/-20%) compared to that of type-2s (24+/-10%) can be attributed to the general evolution of galaxy merger fraction with redshift. Furthermore, we show that AGN mergers are outliers of the M_BH-sigma relation because of over-estimated stellar velocity dispersions, illustrating the importance of removing mergers from the samples defining the M_BH-sigma relations. Finally, we find that the emission-line properties are indistinguishable for spatially resolved and unresolved sources, emphasizing that scenarios involving a single AGN can produce the same double-peaked line profiles and they account for at least 70% of the double-peaked [O III] AGNs.