• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.179-183
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• 2017

AKARI and the subsequent Herschel Space Observatory have yielded tremendous advancement in our knowledge of the infrared-submillimeter properties of active galaxies and active galactic nuclei, AGN. This short review describes some highlights. Active galaxies are found to do what they are supposed to do: build up their stellar bodies while building up their central black holes.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.175-177
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• 2017

In order to reveal physical conditions of molecular gas in active galaxies (active galaxies mean both starbursts and AGNs in this paper), we carried out systematic observations (R = 19 ~ 120) of CO fundamental band at $4.7{\mu}m$ in absorption with AKARI. We also made follow-up CO absorption observations at higher spectral resolution (R = 5000 ~ 1000) with Subaru. Recently, Herschel made extensive observations of highly-excited CO lines in emission in the far-infrared. The two data sets (absorption and emission) sometimes provide us with apparently inconsistent results. One case is starburst galaxies: Subaru observations showed low temperature of molecular gas toward the starburst NGC 253, while Herschel detected highly excited CO lines in the starburst. This suggests that warm molecular clouds are more deeply embedded than newly formed star clusters. The other case is obscured AGNs; Herschel detected highly excited CO lines in emission in nearby AGNs, while AKARI and Subaru observations showed CO absorption only in some of the obscured AGNs. This could reflect the difference of nature of molecular tori in these AGNs. We propose the combination of the absorption and emission observations as an effective tool to reveal geometry of warm molecular clouds in active galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.34.2-34.2
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• 2012

In the context of structure formation in a hierarchical Universe, the relevance of mergers to radio-loud active galaxies is still under debate. I employ two different observational approaches to investigate the merger history of active galaxies, using several different samples of radio-loud AGN. I will first show results from the investigation of a complete sample of flat-spectrum radio-AGN and their role in a merger-driven evolution of galaxies. In the second part of my talk I will focus on the investigation of the close environment of radio-loud active galaxies, using data from the new VISTA-VIDEO near-infrared survey. Strong evidence is found supporting a close connection between merger events and radio-loud AGN.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.79-79
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• 2010

To investigate whether the present-day active galaxies follow the same black hole mass vs. stellar velocity dispersion (MBH-$\sigma*$) relation as quiescent galaxies, we measured the velocity dispersions of a sample of local Seyfert 1 galaxies, for which black hole masses were measured via reverberation mapping. We measured stellar velocity dispersions from high S/N optical spectra centered on the Ca II triplet region (${\sim}8500^{\circ}A$), obtained at the Keck, Palomar, and Lick Observatories. For two objects, in which the Ca II triplet region was contaminated by nuclear emission, we used high-quality H-band spectra obtained with the OH-Suppressing Infrared Imaging Spectrograph and laser-guide star adaptive optics at the Keck-II Telescope. Combining our new measurements with data from the literature, we assemble a sample of 24 active galaxies with stellar velocity dispersions and reverberation MBH in the range of black hole mass 106< MBH /$M{\odot}$ < 109,toobtainthefirstreverberationmappingconstraintsontheslopeandintrinsicscatteroftheMBH- $\sigma*$ relation of active galaxies. Assuming a constant virial coefficient f for the reverberation MBH, we find a slope ${\beta}=3.55{\pm}0.60$ and the intrinsic scatter ${\sigma}int=0.43{\pm}0.08$ dex in the relation log (MBH/M${\odot}$)=$\alpha+\beta$ log(${\sigma}*$/200 km s-1), which are consistent with those found for quiescent galaxies. We derive an updated value of the virial coefficient f by finding the value which places the reverberation masses in best agreement with the MBH - $\sigma*$ relation of quiescent galaxies; using the quiescent MBH - $\sigma*$ relation determined by Gultekin et al. we find log f=0.72+0.09 (or $0.71{\pm}0.10$) with an intrinsic scatter of $0.44{\pm}0.07$ (or 0.46+0.07) dex. No correlations between f and parameters connected to the physics of accretion (such as the Eddington ratio or line-shape measurements) are found. The uncertainty of the virial coefficient remains one of the main sources of the uncertainty in black hole mass determination using reverberation mapping, and therefore also in single-epoch spectroscopic estimates of black hole masses in active galaxies.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.185-187
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• 2017

Combining the AKARI Point Source Catalog and the 37-month Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) catalog, the infrared and X-ray properties of nearby active galactic nuclei were investigated. The 37-month MAXI catalog tabulates 100 nearby Seyfert galaxies, 73 of which are categorized into Seyfert I galaxies. Among these Seyfert galaxies, 69 ones were found to have an AKARI infrared counterpart. For the Seyfert I galaxies in this sample, a well-known correlation was found between the infrared and X-ray luminosities. However, the observed X-ray luminosity of the Seyfert II galaxies tends to be lower for the infrared luminosity than the Seyfert I galaxies. This suggests that the X-ray absorption is significant in the Seyfert II galaxies. The Seyfert II galaxies seem to have a bimodal distribution of the IR color between $18{\mu}m$ and $90{\mu}m$. Especially, a large fraction of the Seyfert II galaxies exhibits a redder IR color than the Seyfert I galaxies. A possible origin of the redder IR color is briefly discussed, in relation to the star formation activity in the host galaxy, and to the X-ray absorption.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.341-343
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• 2015

We present an analysis of the relation between star-formation (SF) and accretion luminosities of local type-2 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at $0.01{\leq}z<0.22$. We match type-2 AGNs found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to current far-infrared (FIR) survey catalogues based on AKARI and Herschel. Estimating AGN luminosities from [$O{\small{III}}$]${\lambda}5007$ and [$O{\small{I}}$]${\lambda}6300$ emission lines, we find a positive linear trend between FIR and AGN luminosities over a wide dynamical range. This result appears to be inconsistent with recent reports that low-luminosity AGNs show no correlation between FIR and X-ray luminosities; this contradiction is likely due to Malmquist and sample selection biases. Moreover, we also find that pure-AGN candidates, for which the FIR radiation is thought to be AGN-dominated, show significant low-SF activities. These AGNs hosted by low-SF galaxies are rare in our sample. However, it is possible that the low fraction of low-SF AGN is caused by observational limitations, as recent FIR surveys are not sufficient to examine the population of high-luminosity AGNs hosted by low-SF galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.399-412
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• 2015

We study the radio properties at 1.4 GHz of Seyfert galaxies with strong forbidden highionization lines (FHILs), selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - a large-sized sample containing nearly equal proportion of diverse range of Seyfert galaxies showing similar redshift distributions compiled by using the Very Large Array survey images. The radio detection rate is low, 49%, which is lower than the detection rate of several other known Seyfert galaxy samples. These galaxies show low star formation rates and the radio emission is dominated by the active nucleus with ≤10% contribution from thermal emission, and possibly, none show evidence for relativistic beaming. The radio detection rate, distributions of radio power, and correlations between radio power and line luminosities or X-ray luminosity for narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1), Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 galaxies are consistent with the predictions of the unified scheme hypothesis. Using correlation between radio and [O III] λ 5007 Å luminosities, we show that ∼8% sample sources are radio-intermediate and the remaining are radio-quiet. There is possibly an ionization stratification associated with clouds on scales of 0.1-1.0 kpc, which have large optical depths at 1.4GHz, and it seems these clouds are responsible for free-free absorption of radio emission from the core; hence, leading to low radio detection rate for these FHIL-emitting Seyfert galaxies

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.447-449
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• 2015

Although the link between activity in the nuclei of galaxy and galactic mergers has been under scrutiny for several years, it is still unclear to what extent and for which populations of active galaxies merger-triggered activity is relevant. The environments of AGN allow an indirect probe of the past merger history and future merger probability of these systems, suffering less from sensitivity issues when extended to higher redshifts than traditional morphological studies of AGN host galaxies. Here we present results from our investigation of the environment of radio selected sources out to a redshift z=2. We employ the first data release J-band catalog of the new near-IR Infrared Medium-Deep Survey (IMS), 1.4 GHz radio data from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey and a deep dedicated VLA survey of the VIMOS field, covering a combined total of 20 sq. degrees. At a flux limit of the combined radio catalog of 0.1 mJy, we probe over 8 orders of magnitude of radio luminosity. Using the second closest neighbor density parameters, we test whether active galaxies inhabit denser environments. We find evidence for a sub-population of radio-selected AGN that reside in significantly overdense environments at small scales, although we do not find significant overdensities for the bulk of our sample. We show that radio-AGN in the most underdense environments have vigorous ongoing star formation. We interpret these results in terms of the triggering and fuelling mechanism of radio-AGN.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.321-324
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• 2012

Using extensive mid-IR datasets from AKARI, i.e. 9-band photometry covering the wavelength range from $2{\mu}m$ to $24{\mu}m$ and the unbiased spectroscopic survey for sources with $S_{\nu}$($9{\mu}m$)>0.3 mJy, we study starburst galaxies specifically at the redshift of z ~ 0.5, whose mid-IR spectra are clearly dominated by the PAH emission features. PAH-selected galaxies, selected with extremely red mid-IR colour due to PAHs, have high rest-frame PAH-to-stellar luminosity ratios, comparable to those in the most active regions in nearby starburst galaxies. Thus, they seem to have active starburst regions spreading over the whole body. Furthermore, some of PAH-selected galaxies are found to have peculiar rest-frame 11-to-$8{\mu}m$ flux ratios, which is systematically smaller than nearby starburst/AGN spectral templates. This may indicate a systematic difference in the physical condition of ISM between nearby and distant starburst galaxies.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.339-341
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• 2012

It is a long known fact that there exists a tight correlation between far-infrared and radio emission both for galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei and for star forming galaxies. We probe the radio - infrared correlation for a sample of extragalactic sources constructed by the cross-correlation of the AKARI/IRC All-Sky Survey Point Source Catalogue, the AKARI/FIS All-Sky Survey Bright Source Catalogue, and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey. Additionally, all objects of our sample were identified as galaxies in NED and SIMBAD databases, and a part of them is known to host active galactic nuclei (AGNs). After remeasuring all the fluxes, in order to avoid small aperture effects, we compare the ratio of radio to infrared emission from different types of extragalactic sources, and discuss the FIR/radio correlation as seen by AKARI and make a comparison to the previous results obtained thanks to IRAS.