Merger Histories and Environments of Dwarf AGN in IllustrisTNG

TL;DR

This study uses cosmological simulations to explore how merger histories and environments influence active galactic nuclei activity in dwarf galaxies, revealing significant differences between AGN and non-AGN dwarfs.

Contribution

It demonstrates that merger history and environment are correlated with AGN activity in dwarf galaxies within the IllustrisTNG simulations, extending understanding into the low-mass galaxy regime.

Findings

AGN dwarfs are more likely in less dense environments

Recent minor mergers are more common in intermediate AGN activity

Non-AGN dwarfs tend to reside longer in dense environments

Abstract

The relationship between active galactic nuclei activity and environment has been long discussed, but it is unclear if these relations extend into the dwarf galaxy mass regime -- in part due to the limits in both observations and simulations. We aim to investigate if the merger histories and environments are significantly different between AGN and non-AGN dwarf galaxies in cosmological simulations, which may be indicative of the importance of these for AGN activity in dwarf galaxies, and whether these results are in line with observations. Using the IllustrisTNG flagship TNG100-1 run, 6\,771 dwarf galaxies are found with 3\,863 ($\sim$57 per cent) having some level of AGN activity. In order to quantify `environment', two measures are used: 1) the distance to a galaxy's 10th nearest neighbour at 6 redshifts and 2) the time since last merger for three different minimum merger mass ratios. A similar analysis is run on TNG50-1 and Illustris-1 to test for the robustness of the findings. Both measures yield significantly different distributions between AGN and non-AGN galaxies; more non-AGN than AGN galaxies have long term residence in dense environments while recent ($\leq 4 \text{ Gyr}$) minor mergers are more common for intermediate AGN activity. While no statements are made about the micro- or macrophysics from these results, it is nevertheless indicative of a non-neglible role of mergers and environments.