A Uniformly Selected, Southern-Sky 6dF, Optical AGN Catalog

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive catalog of over 15,000 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the Southern sky, derived from the 6dF galaxy survey, including detailed spectral data and AGN likelihood estimates for statistical studies.

Contribution

It extends previous all-sky AGN catalogs by providing a large, spectroscopically confirmed AGN sample from the 6dF survey with detailed spectral measurements and probabilistic AGN classification.

Findings

Catalog includes 3109 broad line AGNs and 12,156 narrow line AGNs.

Provides emission line data and AGN likelihoods for all galaxies.

Enables statistical analysis of AGN properties in the Southern hemisphere.

Abstract

We have constructed a catalog of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with $z < 0.13$, based on optical spectroscopy, from the parent sample of galaxies in the 6dF galaxy survey (Final Release of 6dFGS), a census of the Southern hemisphere. This work is an extension of our all sky AGN catalog \citet [ZCF, here after]{ZCF19}. The ZCF is based on 43,533 galaxies with $\rm K_s \leq$ 11.75 ($z \leq 0.09$) in the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS). The parent catalog of this work, the 6dF catalog, consists of 136,304 publicly available digital spectra for 125,071 galaxies with $\rm Dec \leq 0^\circ$ and $\rm K_s \leq 12.65$ (median $z = 0.053$). Our AGN catalog consists of 3109 broad line AGNs and 12,156 narrow line AGNs which satisfy the \citet{Kauffmann03} criteria, of which 3865 also satisfy the \citet{Kewley01} criteria. We also provide emission line widths, fluxes, flux errors, and signal-to-noise ratios of all the galaxies in our spectroscopic sample, allowing users to customize the selection criteria. In addition, we provide AGN likelihood for the rest of galaxies based on the availability and quality of their spectra. These likelihood values can be used for rigorous statistical analyses.