Starburst-AGN mixing: II. Optically-selected active galaxies

TL;DR

This study investigates the spatial contribution of star formation and AGN activity in galaxies, introducing a new diagnostic tool for analyzing AGN influence up to high redshifts using optical emission lines.

Contribution

It presents a novel diagnostic method based on [O II], [O III], and Hbeta lines to quantify AGN activity in galaxies across a wide range of redshifts.

Findings

AGN narrow line regions extend up to ~6.3 kpc.

Both star formation and AGN significantly contribute to key emission lines.

The new diagnostic is effective up to z ~ 0.85 in optical and z ~ 3.5 in near-infrared.

Abstract

We use 4 galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey with clear signs of accretion onto supermassive black holes to investigate the relative contribution of star-formation and active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity to the line-emission of each galaxy as a function of radius. The combination of star-formation and AGN activity produces curved "mixing sequences" on standard optical diagnostic diagrams, and the fraction of emission due to AGN activity decreases smoothly with distance from the centre of the galaxy. We use the AGN activity profiles to calculate the size of the AGN narrow line regions, which have radii of ~ 6.3 kpc. We calculate the fractional contribution of the star-formation and the AGN activity to the global Halpha, [O II] $\lambda \lambda$ 3727,3729 and [O III] $\lambda$ 5007 luminosities of each galaxy, and show that both ionization sources contribute significantly to the emission in all three lines. We use weighted combinations of stellar and AGN photoionization models to produce mixing models, which are consistent with observations for 85 percent of spaxels across the galaxies in our sample. We also present a new diagnostic for starburst-AGN mixing which requires only the [O II], [O III] and Hbeta emission lines, and can therefore be used to calculate AGN fractions up to z ~ 0.85 in the optical and z ~ 3.5 in the near-infrared. We anticipate that this diagnostic will facilitate studies of the properties of AGN ionizing radiation fields and the relative optical contribution of star-formation and AGN activity over cosmic time.