• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.36.4-36.4
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• 2019

Ricci et al. (2017, Nature, 549, 488) discovered a lack of high accretion rate, obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the hard X-ray selected Swift/BAT local AGN survey. This was interpreted as radiative pressure driven AGN feedback clearing its immediate vicinity composed of dusty gas (having an effectively low Eddington limit in the order of 0.01-0.1), and governing the level of nuclear obscuration. As we find Eddington-limited accretion and high extinction values among obscured, luminous AGN (quasars) however, it may be that the local X-ray AGN and the distant quasars undergo different feedback mechanisms in clearing their surroundings. In this study, we simply compare the obscuring column density and Eddington ratio values for quasars selected by various methods, including X-ray obscured, optically blue, infrared red/luminous, and submillimeter bright AGN. We find obscured quasars lying on the column density-Eddington ratio diagram previously unoccupied by Ricci et al., suggesting that radiative pressure is insufficient to clear its dusty structure at high luminosity, or that the dust in obscured quasars are more extended than the low luminosity counterparts to become fully transparent. We discuss alternative feedback scenarios that may be more relevant for obscured quasars.

• 천문학회보
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• 제46권1호
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• pp.31.3-32
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• 2021

We quantify the relative role of galaxy environment and bar presence on AGN triggering in face-on spiral galaxies using a volume-limited sample with 0.02 < z < 0.055, Mr < 19.5, and σ > 70 km s-1 selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7. To separate their possible entangled effects, we divide the sample into bar and non-bar samples, and each sample is further divided into three environment cases of isolated galaxies, interacting galaxies with a pair, and cluster galaxies. The isolated case is used as a control sample. For these six cases, we measure AGN fractions at a fixed central star formation rate and central velocity dispersion, σ. We demonstrate that the internal process of the bar-induced gas inflow is more efficient in AGN triggering than the external mechanism of the galaxy interactions in groups and cluster outskirts. The significant effects of bar instability and galaxy environments are found in galaxies with a relatively less massive bulge. We conclude that from the perspective of AGN-galaxy coevolution, a massive black hole is one of the key drivers of spiral galaxy evolution. If it is not met, a bar instability helps the evolution, and in the absence of bars, galaxy interactions/mergers become important. In other words, in the presence of a massive central engine, the role of the two gas inflow mechanisms is reduced or almost disappears. We also find that bars in massive galaxies are very decisive in increasing AGN fractions when the host galaxies are inside clusters.

• 천문학회보
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.54.1-54.1
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• 2016

Multi-wavelength variability is a staple of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Optical variability probes the nature of the central engine of AGN at smaller linear scales than conventional imaging and spectroscopic techniques. Previous studies have shown that optical variability is more prevalent at longer timescales and at shorter wavelengths. Intra-night variability can be explained through the damped random walk model but small samples and inhomogeneous data have made constraining this model hard. To understand the properties and physical mechanism of intra-night optical variability, we are performing the KMTNet Active Nuclei Variability Survey (KANVaS). Using KMTNet, we aim to study the intra-night variability of ~1000 AGN at a magnitude depth of ~19mag in R band over a total area of ${\sim}24deg^2$ on the sky. Test data in the COSMOS, XMM-LSS, and S82-2 fields was obtained over 4, 6, and 8 nights respectively during 2015, in B, V, R, and I bands. Each night was composed of 5-13 epoch with ~30 min cadence and 80-120 sec exposure times. As a pilot study, we analyzed data in the COSMOS field where we reach a magnitude depth of ~19.5 in R band (at S/N~100) with seeing varying between 1.5-2.0 arcsec. We used the Chandra-COSMOS catalog to identify 166 AGNs among 549 AGNs at B<23. We performed differential photometry between the selected AGN and nearby stars, achieving photometric uncertainty ~0.01mag. We employ various standard time-series analysis tools to identify variable AGN, including the chi-square test. Preliminarily results indicate that intra-night variability is found for ~17%, 17%, 8% and 7% of all X-ray selected AGN in the B, V, R, and I band, respectively. The majority of the identified variable AGN are classified as Type 1 AGN, with only a handful of Type 2 AGN showing evidence for variability. The work done so far confirms there are more variable AGN at shorter wavelengths and that intra-night variability most likely originates in the accretion disk of these objects. We will briefly discuss the quality of the data, challenges we encountered, solutions we employed for this work, and our updated future plans.

• 천문학회보
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.43.1-43.1
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• 2015

We have discovered an unexplored population of galaxies featuring weak broad-line regions (BLRs) at z < 0.2 from detailed analysis of galaxy spectra in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. These objects predominantly show a stellar continuum but also a broad $H{\alpha}$ emission line, indicating the presence of a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN) oriented so that we are viewing the central engine directly without significant obscuration. These accreting black holes have previously eluded detection due to their weak nature. The new BLR AGNs we found increased the number of known type 1 AGNs by 49%. Some of these new BLR AGNs were detected at the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and their X-ray properties confirm that they are indeed type 1 AGN. Based on our new and more complete catalogue of type 1 AGNs, we derived the type 1 fraction of AGNs as a function of [OIII] ${\lambda}5007$ emission luminosity and explored the possible dilution effect on the obscured AGN due to star-formation. The new type 1 AGN fraction shows much more complex behavior with respect to black hole mass and bolometric luminosity than suggested by the existing receding torus model. The type 1 AGN fraction is sensitive to both of these factors, and there seems to be a sweet spot (ridge) in the diagram of black hole mass and bolometric luminosity. Furthermore, we present a hint that the Eddington ratio plays a role in determining the opening angles. This work is submitted to ApJS.

• 천문학회보
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• 제40권2호
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• pp.32.3-33
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• 2015

There exist scaling relations that link the mass of supermassive black holes with both the velocity dispersion and the mass of the central stellar cusp of their host galaxies. This implies that these two components grow in tandem. Feedback from actively accreting supermassive black holes (AGN), in the form of multi-phase gas outflows, has been argued to be the agent of this co-evolution. Here we employ the powerful GMOS integral field spectroscopy unit on the 8.2m Gemini-North telescope to investigate ionized gas outflows of luminous Type 2 AGN in the local Universe (z<0.1). Our sample of 6 galaxies is drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and was selected based on their [OIII] dust-corrected luminosity (>1042 erg/s) and signatures of outflows in the [OIII] line profile of their spatially integrated SDSS spectra. These are arguably the best candidates to explore AGN feedback in action since they are < 1% of a large local type 2 AGN SDSS sample selected based on their [OIII] kinematics. We combine a careful spectral decomposition of the [OIII] and $H{\alpha}$ line profiles with spatial information on ~0.5kpc scales to understand the outflow kinematics and energetics in these objects. We find clear evidence for strong outflows in [OIII] and occasionally $H{\alpha}$ that are clearly driven by the ionizing radiation of the AGN. We kinematically and spatially decompose outflowing and rotating ionized gas components. We find [OIII] to be a better tracer of AGN outflows, while $H{\alpha}$ appears to be strongly affected by both stellar rotation and outflows induced by ongoing star formation. The observed kinematics and spatial distribution of the ionized gas imply a large opening angle for the outflow. Finally, we find the projected outflow velocity to decrease as a function of distance, while its dispersion shows a more complex structure with a potentially initially increasing trend (out to 0.5-1kpc distances).

• 천문학회보
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• 제38권2호
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• pp.52.2-52.2
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• 2013

We explore the relative importance of the role of small-scale environment and large-scale environment in triggering nuclear activity of the local galaxies using a volume-limited sample with $M_r$ < -19.5 and 0.02 < z < 0.0685 selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. The active galactic nuclei (AGN) host sample is composed of Type II AGNs identified with flux ratios of narrow emission lines with S/N > 6 and the central velocity dispersion of the sample galaxies is limited to have a narrow range between 130 < ${\sigma}$ < 200($km\;s^{-1}$), corresponding to 7.4 < $log(M_{BH}/M_{\odot})$ < 8.1 in order to fix the mass of the supermassive black hole at the center of its host galaxy. In this study, we find that the AGN fraction ($f_{AGN}$) of late-type galaxies are larger than of early-type galaxies and that for target galaxy with late-type nearest neighbor, $f_{AGN}$ starts to increase as the target galaxy approaches the virial radius of the nearest neighbor (about a few hundred kpc scale). The latter result may support the idea that the hydrodynamic interaction with the nearest neighbor as well as tidal interaction and merger also plays an important role in triggering the nuclear activity of galaxy. We also find that early-type cluster galaxies show decline of AGN activity compared to ones in lower density regions, whereas the direction of dependence of AGN activity for late-type galaxies is opposite.

• 천문학논총
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• 제32권1호
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• pp.239-244
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• 2017

How does the presence of an AGN influence the total SFR estimates of galaxies and change their distribution with respect to the Galaxy Main Sequence? To contribute to solving this question, we study a sample of 1133 sources detected in the North Ecliptic Pole field (NEP) by AKARI and Herschel. We create a multi-wavelength dataset for these galaxies and we fit their multi-wavelength Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) using the whole spectral regime (from 0.1 to $500{\mu}m$). We perform the fit using three procedures: LePhare and two optimised codes for identifying AGN tracers from the SED analysis. In this work we present an overview of the comparison between the estimates of the Infrared bolometric luminosities (between 8 and $1000{\mu}m$) and the AGN fractions obtained exploiting these different procedures. In particular, by estimating the AGN contribution in four different wavelength ranges ($5-40{\mu}m$, $10-20{\mu}m$, $20-40{\mu}m$ and $8-1000{\mu}m$) we show how the presence of an AGN affects the PAH emission by suppressing the ratio $\frac{L_{8{\mu}m}}{L_{4.5{\mu}m}}$ as a function of the considered wavelength range.

• 대한한의학회지
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.102-112
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• 2003

The homozygous deletion allele of the angiotensin converting enzyme gene (ACF/DD), homozygous threonine allele of the angiotensinogen gene (AGN/TT), and the 4 allele of the apolipoprotein E gene (apoE/4) are reported to be associated with ischemic heart disease. Ischemic cerebrovascular disease (ICVD) is another atherosclerotic disease, and the effects of these polymorphisms on ICVD have been confusing. In this study, I investigated whether ACF/DD, AGN/TT, and apoE/4 genotypes are associated with ICVD and whether genetic risk is enhanced by the effect of one upon another. I ascertained these genotypes in patients with ICVD (n=121) diagnosed by brain computed tomography. Control subjects for the ICVD were randomly selected from subjects matched for age, gender, and history of hypertension with patients. Frequency of ACF/DD genotype was somewhat higher in the patients with ICVD than in the controls (18％ vs. 15％). Incidence of ICVD was higher in subjects with the apoE/4/4 genotype than in the other genotypes (50％ vs. 27-29％). Incidence of ICVD was much higher in subjects with the AGN/TT genotype than in AGN/MM genotype (36％ vs. 17％). Furthermore, the AGN/TT genotype greatly increased the relative risk for ICVD in the subjects with ACF/DD genotype (80.0％ vs. 20.0％, P=0.089). Finally, incidence of ICVD was much higher in the subjects with both apoE/2/4 and AGN/TT genotype than in the other genotypes (83.3％ vs. 16.7％, P=O.095). These results suggest that AGN/TT enhances the risk for ICVD associated with ACF/DD and apoE/2/4.

• 천문학회보
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• 제38권1호
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• pp.43.2-43.2
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• 2013

The local environmental effects on the triggering of active galactic nucleus(AGN) activity has been studied with many authors, but there still be controversy. We perform statistical analysis for nearby(0.01 < z < 0.05) volume limited(Mr < -19) samples with visual inspection based on Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release7. We inspect ~60,000 galaxy images visually to find peculiar objects which show not only ongoing merging features and tidal features, but also post merging features like ring or shell structures. We found that these peculiar features were shown at least 2 times more frequently among AGN host galaxies than non AGN galaxies, and this trend was still visible when galaxy properties such as color or stellar mass are fixed. Furthermore, L[OIII] and L(Ha) of peculiar galaxies are found to be more increased than those of normal galaxies. In order to ensure this results, we also checked it for a smaller subsample with ~2mag deeper monochromatic images provided from SDSS Stripe82 database, and found consistent results. At last, we perform the same work for pair(r_p<80kpc/h, delta_v<200km/s) systems. Because of some pair systems which do not interact gravitationally in actuality but fulfill the criteria for identification of pair system, the trends are found to be slightly weaker. We also found that line luminosities are increased consistently as projected distance between central and companion galaxy decreased, and as companion color gets bluer. Overall, the results of this study tell us that the local environment of galaxies affect the frequency as well as the strength of AGN activity. Local environmental effects, however, may not be the dominant triggering mechanism for AGN activity since the majority of peculiar galaxies are non AGN galaxies.

• 천문학회보
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.35.2-35.2
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• 2016

We present a census of AGN-driven gas outflows based on the kinematics of ionized gas and stars, using a large sample of ~11,000 emission line galaxies at z < 0.3, selected from SDSS. First, a broad correlation between gas and stellar velocity dispersions indicates that the bulge gravitational potential plays a main role in determining the ionized gas kinematics. However, the velocity dispersion of the [OIII] emission line is larger than stellar velocity dispersion by a factor of 1.3-1.4, suggesting that the non-gravitational (non-virial) component, i.e., outflows, is almost comparable to the gravitational component. Second, gas-to-stellar velocity dispersion ratio increases with both AGN luminosity and Eddington ratio, suggesting that non-gravitational kinematics are clearly linked to AGN accretion. The distribution in the [OIII] velocity - velocity dispersion diagram dramatically expands toward large values with increasing AGN luminosity, implying that the launching velocity of gas outflows increases with AGN luminosity. Third, the fraction of AGNs with a signature of the non-gravitational kinematics, steeply increases with AGN luminosity and Eddington ratio, while the majority of luminous AGNs presents the non-gravitational kinematics in the [OIII] profile. These results suggest that ionized gas outflows are prevalent among type 2 AGNs. On the other hand, we find no strong trend of the [OIII] kinematics with radio luminosity, once we remove the effect of the bulge gravitational potential, indicating that ionized gas outflows are not directly related to radio activity for the majority of type 2 AGNs. We will discuss the implication of these results for AGN feedback in the local universe.