Was 49b: An Overmassive AGN in a Merging Dwarf Galaxy?

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of an overmassive AGN in a dwarf galaxy within a minor merger system, challenging existing notions about the types of mergers that trigger luminous AGN activity.

Contribution

It identifies a dual AGN system with an unusually large black hole in a dwarf galaxy, providing new insights into SMBH growth in minor mergers.

Findings

The AGN has a bolometric luminosity of ~2 x 10^45 erg/s.

The black hole mass is approximately 1.3 x 10^8 M_Sol.

The host galaxy is a dwarf elliptical, and the system is a minor merger.

Abstract

We present a combined morphological and X-ray analysis of Was 49, an isolated, dual AGN system notable for the presence of a dominant AGN Was 49b in the disk of the primary galaxy Was 49a, at a projected radial distance of 8 kpc from the nucleus. Using X-ray data from Chandra, NuSTAR, and Swift, we find that this AGN has a bolometric luminosity of L_bol ~ 2 x 10^45 erg/s, with a black hole mass of M_BH=1.3^{+2.9}_{-0.9} x 10^8 M_Sol. Despite its large mass, our analysis of optical data from the Discovery Channel Telescope shows that the supermassive black hole is hosted by a stellar counterpart with a mass of only 5.6^{+4.9}_{-2.6} x 10^9 M_Sol, making the SMBH potentially larger than expected from SMBH-galaxy scaling relations, and the stellar counterpart exhibits a morphology that is consistent with dwarf elliptical galaxies. Our analysis of the system in the r and K bands indicates that Was 49 is a minor merger, with a mass ratio of Was 49a to Was 49b between 1:7 and 1:15. This is in contrast with findings that the most luminous merger-triggered AGNs are found in major mergers, and that minor mergers predominantly enhance AGN activity in the primary galaxy.