Active Dwarf Galaxy Database II: Connections between Host Galaxy Properties and Black Hole Accretion Signatures

TL;DR

This study explores how different methods of identifying active dwarf galaxies relate to their host galaxy properties, revealing distinct sub-populations and potential evolutionary stages of black hole accretion.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive multi-method database and analyzes the connection between AGN signatures and host galaxy properties using statistical techniques.

Findings

Infrared-selected AGN have higher star formation rates and lower stellar masses.

Broad line AGN exhibit higher AGN luminosities.

X-ray and variability-selected AGN show higher star formation rates.

Abstract

We investigate the connection between accretion signatures and host galaxy properties in the context of how active dwarf galaxies are identified. We use the database constructed in Wasleske & Baldassare (2024) which contains dwarf galaxies that were selected as active galaxies by optical spectroscopy, infrared colors, X-ray brightness, and photometric variability. Multi-wavelength archival data was used to consistently apply all of these methods to every galaxy within this compiled set. The cross application of these methods resulted in a diversity of sub-populations identified as active by some set of these techniques. In this paper, we estimate host galaxy properties from spectral energy distribution models. We connect the active galactic nuclei (AGN) signatures to our estimated host galaxies' properties using statistical dimensionality reduction methods. We find that dwarf AGN selected by infrared colors are the most distinct population, with the highest star formation rates and lowest stellar masses. We also find some other key population differences, such as the broad line AGN having significantly higher AGN luminosities. X-ray and variability selected AGN have higher average star formation rates than those selected with optical narrow line spectroscopic diagrams. Our connections to the host galaxy parameters potentially point to the sub-populations representing different epochs of the evolution of accretion.