ALMA/SCUBA-2 COSMOS Survey: Properties of X-ray- and SED-selected AGNs in Bright Submillimeter Galaxies

TL;DR

This study examines the properties of AGNs in bright submillimeter galaxies in the COSMOS field, revealing that major mergers are likely important in triggering AGN activity, with many AGNs being X-ray faint or obscured.

Contribution

It combines SED modeling and X-ray data to identify and analyze AGNs in bright SMGs, highlighting the role of major mergers in AGN triggering.

Findings

24 AGN-host galaxies identified via SEDs

Approximately 47% of AGN hosts are major merger candidates

Major mergers are more common among AGN hosts than non-AGN SMGs

Abstract

We investigate the properties of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the brightest submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) in the COSMOS field. We utilize the bright sample of ALMA/SCUBA-2 COSMOS Survey (AS2COSMOS), which consists of 260 SMGs with $S_{\mathrm{870}\, \mu \mathrm{m}}=0.7\text{--}19.2\,\mathrm{mJy}$ at $z=0\text{--}6$. We perform optical to millimeter spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling for the whole sample. We identify 24 AGN-host galaxies from the SEDs. Supplemented by 23 X-ray detected AGNs (X-ray AGNs), we construct an overall sample of 40 AGN-host galaxies. The X-ray luminosity upper bounds indicate that the X-ray undetected SED-identified AGNs are likely to be nearly Compton thick or have unusually suppressed X-ray emission. From visual classification, we identify $25^{+6}_{-5}$\% of the SMGs without AGNs as major merger candidates. This fraction is almost consistent with the general galaxy population at $z\sim2$, suggesting that major mergers are not necessarily required for the enhanced star formation in SMGs. We also identify $47^{+16}_{-15}$\% of the AGN hosts as major merger candidates, which is about twice as high as that in the SMGs without AGNs. This suggests that major mergers play a key role in triggering AGN activity in bright SMGs.