A Catalog of Broad H{\alpha} and H{\beta} Active Galactic Nuclei in MaNGA

TL;DR

This study catalogs and analyzes broad Hα and Hβ emission-line active galactic nuclei in the MaNGA survey, revealing their properties, luminosities, and a high merger fraction, indicating merger-driven fueling.

Contribution

First comprehensive catalog of broad Hα and Hβ AGN in MaNGA, including measurements of line regions and merger activity analysis.

Findings

Identified 1,042 broad-line AGN with luminosities 10^{37} - 10^{43} erg s^{-1}

Median broad line region radius is 0.02 parsecs

High merger fraction (~43-44%) among broad-line AGN compared to general galaxy sample

Abstract

Broad H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ emission lines (FWHM > 1,000 km s$^{-1}$) are incredibly efficient tracers of the high-velocity clouds encircling Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). As a result, we search for these broad line AGN in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) catalog. We identify 301 broad-line H$\alpha$ galaxies and 801 broad-line H$\beta$ galaxies in the catalog. In total, we detect 1,042 unique broad-line galaxies with luminosities between 10$^{37}$ - 10$^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$; 60 feature both broad H$\alpha$ and broad H$\beta$ emission. We also determine that the broad line region radius ranges between 0.01 - 46 light days, with a median radius of 0.1 light days (0.02 pc) for our broad H$\beta$ sample. In addition, we find that both samples feature a higher fraction of galaxy mergers (44% for the broad H$\alpha$ sample and 43% for the broad H$\beta$ sample), compared to the full MaNGA galaxy sample (26%), which suggests that merger-driven fueling is strongly active in our sample.