Active Galactic Nuclei and Host Galaxies in COSMOS-Web. II. First Look at the Kpc-scale Dual and Offset AGN Population
Junyao Li, Ming-Yang Zhuang, Yue Shen, Marta Volonteri, Nianyi Chen,, Tiziana Di Matteo

TL;DR
This study systematically identifies and analyzes kpc-scale dual and offset AGNs in the COSMOS-Web survey, revealing their prevalence, redshift evolution, and consistency with cosmological simulations, shedding light on SMBH-galaxy coevolution.
Contribution
First comprehensive search for moderate-luminosity, obscured dual and offset AGNs at high redshift using deep HST and JWST imaging, expanding understanding of AGN pair populations.
Findings
Nearly 28% dual AGNs among moderate-luminosity AGNs.
Significant increase in pair fraction with redshift, up to ~23% at z~4.5.
Results align with cosmological simulation predictions.
Abstract
Kpc-scale dual and offset Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are signposts of accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) triggered during late-stage galaxy mergers, offering crucial insights into the coevolution of SMBHs and galaxies. However, robustly confirmed systems at high redshift (e.g., ) are scarce and biased towards the most luminous and unobscured systems. In this study, we systematically search for kpc-scale (projected separation kpc) dual and offset AGNs around 571 moderate-luminosity, X-ray-selected AGNs including the obscured population, utilizing deep HST ACS/F814W and multiband JWST NIRCam imaging from the COSMOS-Web survey. We identify 59 dual and 30 offset AGN candidates in late stage major mergers based on spatially-resolved spectral energy distribution analyses. This translates to and bona-fide dual and offset AGNs using a probabilistic pair…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsAstronomy and Astrophysical Research · Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation · Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
