A New Diagnostic Diagram of Ionization Source for High Redshift Emission Line Galaxies

TL;DR

The paper introduces the Kinematic-Excitation (KEx) diagram, a new tool using [OIII]/Hβ ratio and [OIII] line width to classify ionization sources in emission-line galaxies at intermediate redshift, validated against SDSS and DEEP2 data.

Contribution

It presents the KEx diagram as a novel, simple classification method for high-redshift emission-line galaxies based on only two spectral features.

Findings

KEx diagram effectively separates AGNs from star-forming galaxies.

X-ray classified AGNs predominantly fall into the KEx-AGN region.

The diagram's demarcation line should shift at z~2 to account for cosmic evolution.

Abstract

We propose a new diagram, the Kinematic-Excitation diagram (KEx diagram), which uses the [OIII]/H\beta\ line ratio and the [OIII]5007 emission line width (\sigma_{[OIII]}) to diagnose the ionization source and physical properties of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and the star-forming galaxies (SFGs). The KEx diagram is a suitable tool to classify emission-line galaxies (ELGs) at intermediate redshift because it uses only the [OIII]5007 and H\beta\ emission lines. We use the SDSS DR7 main galaxy sample and the Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich (BPT) diagnostic to calibrate the diagram at low redshift. We find that the diagram can be divided into 3 regions: one occupied mainly by the pure AGNs (KEx-AGN region), one dominated by composite galaxies (KEx-composite region), and one contains mostly SFGs (KEx-SFG region). AGNs are separated from SFGs in this diagram mainly because they preferentially reside in luminous and massive galaxies and have high [OIII]/H\beta. The separation of AGN from star-forming galaxies is even cleaner thanks to the additional 0.15/0.12 dex offset in [OIII] line width at fixed luminosity/stellar mass. We apply the KEx diagram to 7,866 galaxies at 0.3 < z < 1 in the DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey, and compare it to an independent X-ray classification scheme using Chandra observation. X-ray AGNs are mostly located in the KEx-AGN region while X-ray SFGs are mostly located in the KEx-SFG region. Almost all of Type1 AGNs lie in the KEx-AGN region. These confirm the reliability of this classification diagram for emission line galaxies at intermediate redshift. At z~2, the demarcation line between star-forming galaxies and AGNs should shift 0.3 dex higher in \sigma_{[OIII]} to account for evolution.