A Magellan-IMACS-IFU Search for Dynamical Drivers of Nuclear Activity. I. Reduction Pipeline and Galaxy Catalog

TL;DR

This study introduces a new reduction pipeline for IMACS-IFU data and presents galaxy kinematic maps, aiming to understand the dynamical triggers of nuclear activity in Seyfert and inactive galaxies.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed data reduction and calibration procedure for IMACS-IFU long mode observations and presents a comprehensive galaxy sample with kinematic maps.

Findings

First detailed IMACS-IFU data reduction pipeline

Galaxy kinematic maps and properties presented

Sample includes Seyfert and inactive control galaxies

Abstract

Using the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) integral-field unit (IFU) on the 6.5m Magellan telescope, we have designed the first statistically significant investigation of the two-dimensional distribution and kinematics of ionized gas and stars in the central kiloparsec regions of a well-matched sample of Seyfert and inactive control galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The goals of the project are to use the fine spatial sampling (0.2 arcsec/pixel) and large wavelength coverage (4000-7000A) of the IMACS-IFU to search for dynamical triggers of nuclear activity in the central region where active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity and dynamical timescales become comparable, to identify and assess the impact of AGN-driven outflows on the host galaxy and to provide a definitive sample of local galaxy kinematics for comparison with future three-dimensional kinematic studies of high-redshift systems. In this paper, we provide the first detailed description of the procedure to reduce and calibrate data from the IMACS-IFU in `long mode' to obtain two-dimensional maps of the distribution and kinematics of ionized gas and stars. The sample selection criteria are presented, observing strategy described and resulting maps of the sample galaxies presented along with a description of the observed properties of each galaxy and the overall observed properties of the sample.