Revisiting the clustering of narrow-line AGN in the local Universe: Joint dependence on stellar mass and color

TL;DR

This study examines how the clustering of narrow-line AGN depends on galaxy mass and color, revealing that internal processes primarily regulate AGN activity in certain galaxy types, with environmental factors playing a lesser role.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the joint dependence of AGN clustering on galaxy mass and color, and introduces a halo model with a mass-dependent central fraction to explain observations.

Findings

AGN in blue and massive red galaxies show similar clustering to control galaxies.

Red, low-mass AGN hosts exhibit antibias at large scales.

Halo assembly history influences AGN activity in low-mass red galaxies.

Abstract

We investigate the clustering and dark halo properties for the narrow-line active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the SDSS, particularly examining the joint dependence on galaxy mass and color. AGN in galaxies with blue colors or massive red galaxies with M*>~10^{10.5}Msun are found to show almost identical clustering amplitudes at all scales to control galaxies of the same mass, color and structural parameters. This suggests AGN activity in blue galaxies or massive red galaxies is regulated by internal processes, with no correlation with environment. The antibias of AGN at scales between ~100kpc and a few Mpc, as found in Li et al. (2006) for the AGN as a whole, is observed only for the AGN hosted by galaxies with red colors and relatively low masses <10^{10.5}Msun. A simple halo model in which AGN are preferentially found at dark halo centers can reproduce the observational results, but requiring a mass-dependent central fraction which is a factor of ~4 higher than the fraction estimated from the SDSS group catalogue. The same group catalogue reveals that the host groups of AGN in red satellites tend to have lower halo masses than control galaxies, while the host groups of AGN in red centrals tend to form earlier, as indicated by a larger stellar mass gap between the two most massive galaxies in the groups. Our result implies that the mass assembly history of dark halos may play an additional role in the AGN activity in low-mass red galaxies.