Bar effects on the central SF and AGN activities in the SDSS galaxy sample

  • Kim, Minbae (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University) ;
  • Choi, Yun-Yung (Department of Astronomy and Space Science, Kyung Hee University) ;
  • Kim, Sungsoo S. (School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University)
  • Published : 2016.04.12

Abstract

We explore the role of bars in AGN-galaxy co-evolution using a volume-limited face-on late-type galaxy sample with $M_r$ < -19.5 and 0.02 < z < 0.055 selected from SDSS DR7. In this study, we investigate how $SFR_{fib}$ as a proxy of gas contents at galactic center (over 1~1.5 kpc bulge scale) and central stellar velocity dispersion, ${\sigma}$, of host galaxies are connected to the bar presence and AGN activity. We find that galaxies are distributed in three distinct regions over the $SFR_{fib}-{\sigma}$ space and the behaviors of their bar fraction ($f_{Bar}$) are clearly different for each region. Galaxies at the AGN dominant region tend to be gas-deficient as $f_{Bar}$ increases and bars are more frequently found in fully-quenched late-type galaxies at the quiescent region, suggesting that bars speed up of the consumption of gas by SF and lead a sudden decline in the central gas. Overall, the bar effects on the AGN activity are positive over the same space except for quiescent galaxies with ${\sigma}$ > $170km\;s^{-1}$. Most significant bar effect on the AGN activity occurs in the less massive galaxies having sufficient gas, whereas the effect on galaxies at the AGN dominant region with higher the AGN fraction is relatively small. We suggest that the bar affect both central SF and AGN activities, but differently for central gas amount and BH (or bulge) mass of galaxies. We also investigate the AGN-bar connection with only pure AGNs and then confirm that they give marginally the same results.

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