Active Galactic Nuclei from HeII: a more complete census of AGN in SDSS galaxies yields a new population of low-luminosity AGN in highly star-forming galaxies

TL;DR

This study enhances the census of local AGN by incorporating HeII emission line diagnostics, revealing a significant population of low-luminosity AGN in star-forming galaxies often missed by traditional methods.

Contribution

It introduces the HeII emission line diagnostic as a more sensitive tool for detecting AGN in star-forming galaxies, expanding the known AGN population in SDSS data.

Findings

22% increase in AGN detection using HeII diagnostics

HeII-selected AGN are prevalent in star-forming, blue cloud, and main sequence galaxies

Archival Chandra data confirm the AGN nature of HeII-selected candidates

Abstract

In order to perform a more complete census of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the local Universe, we investigate the use of the HeII~$\lambda 4685$ emission line diagnostic diagram by Shirazi & Brinchmann (2012) in addition to the standard methods based on other optical emission lines. The He II based diagnostics is more sensitive to AGN ionization in the presence of strong star formation than conventional line diagnostics. We survey a magnitude-limited sample of 63,915 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 at $0.02<z<0.05$ and use both the conventional BPT emission line diagnostic diagrams, as well as the HeII diagram to identify AGN. In this sample, 1,075 galaxies are selected as AGN using the BPT diagram, while an additional 234 galaxies are identified as AGN using the HeII diagnostic diagram, representing a 22% increase of AGN in the parent galaxy sample. We explore the host galaxy properties of these new HeII selected AGN candidates and find that they are most common in star-forming galaxies on the blue cloud and on the main sequence where ionization from star-formation is most likely to mask AGN emission in the BPT lines. We note in particular a high HeII AGN fraction in galaxies above the high-mass end of the main sequence where quenching is expected to occur. We use archival Chandra observations to confirm the AGN nature of candidates selected through HeII based diagnostic. Finally, we discuss how this technique can help inform galaxy/black hole co-evolution scenarios.