[OIII] 5007A Emission Line Width as a Surrogate for stellar dispersion in Type 1 AGNs?

TL;DR

This study investigates the correlation between [OIII] 5007A emission line width and stellar velocity dispersion in Type 1 AGNs, highlighting the influence of outflows and Eddington ratio on their relationship.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the [OIII] line width as a surrogate for stellar dispersion, considering factors like outflows, galaxy orientation, and accretion rates, which were not thoroughly examined before.

Findings

Core [OIII] line width correlates with stellar velocity dispersion with some scatter.

Outflow properties significantly affect the [OIII] and stellar dispersion relationship.

Caution is advised when using [OIII] line width as a proxy for stellar velocity dispersion.

Abstract

We present a study of the relation between the [OIII] 5007A emission line width (sigma_{[OIII]}) and stellar velocity dispersion (sigma_{*}), utilizing a sample of 740 type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with high-quality spectra at redshift z < 1.0. We find the broad correlation between the core component of [OIII] emission line width (sigma_{[OIII,core]}) and sigma_{*} with a scatter of 0.11~dex for the low redshift (z < 0.1) sample; for redshift (0.3 < z < 1.0) AGNs, the scatter is larger, being 0.16~dex. We also find that the Eddington ratio (L_{bol}/L_{Edd}) may play an important role in the discrepancies between sigma_{[OIII,core]} and sigma_{*}. As the L_{bol}/L_{Edd} increases, sigma_{[OIII,core]} tends to be larger than sigma_{*}. By classifying our local sample with different minor-to-major axis ratios, we find that sigma_{*} is larger than sigma_{[OIII,core]} for those edge-on spiral galaxies. In addition, we also find that the effects of outflow strength properties such as maximum outflow velocity (V_{max}) and the broader component of [OIII] emission line width and line shift (sigma_{[OIII,out]} and V_{[OIII,out]}) may play a major role in the discrepancies between sigma_{[OIII,core]} and sigma_{*}. The discrepancies between sigma_{[OIII,core]} and sigma_{*} are larger when V_{max}, V_{[OIII,out]}, and sigma_{[OIII,out]} increase. Our results show that the outflow strengths may have significant effects on the differences between narrow-line region gas and stellar kinematics in AGNs. We suggest that caution should be taken when using sigma_{[OIII,core]} as a surrogate for sigma_{*}. In addition, the substitute of sigma_{[OIII,core]} for sigma_{*} could be used only for low luminosity AGNs.