CLEAR: Spatially Resolved Emission Lines and Active Galactic Nuclei at 0.6 < z < 1.3

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Documents

  • Bren E. Backhaus
  • Joanna S. Bridge
  • Jonathan R. Trump
  • Nikko J. Cleri
  • Casey Papovich
  • Raymond C. Simons
  • Ivelina Momcheva
  • Benne W. Holwerda
  • Zhiyuan Ji
  • Intae Jung
  • Matharu, Jasleen Kaur

We investigate spatially resolved emission-line ratios in a sample of 219 galaxies (0.6 < z < 1.3) detected using the G102 grism on the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 taken as part of the CANDELS Ly alpha Emission at Reionization survey to measure ionization profiles and search for low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGN). We analyze [O iii] and H beta emission-line maps, enabling us to spatially resolve the [O iii]/H beta emission-line ratio across the galaxies in the sample. We compare the [O iii]/H beta ratio in galaxy centers and outer annular regions to measure ionization differences and investigate the potential of sources with nuclear ionization to host AGN. We investigate some of the individual galaxies that are candidates to host strong nuclear ionization and find that they often have low stellar mass and are undetected in X-rays, as expected for low-luminosity AGN in low-mass galaxies. We do not find evidence for a significant population of off-nuclear AGN or other clumps of off-nuclear ionization. We model the observed distribution of [O iii]/H beta spatial profiles and find that most galaxies are consistent with a small or zero difference between their nuclear and off-nuclear line ratios, but 6%-16% of galaxies in the sample are likely to host nuclear [O iii]/H beta that is similar to 0.5 dex higher than in their outer regions. This study is limited by large uncertainties in most of the measured [O iii]/H beta spatial profiles; therefore, deeper data, e.g., from deeper HST/WFC3 programs or from JWST/NIRISS, are needed to more reliably measure the spatially resolved emission-line conditions of individual high-redshift galaxies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number37
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume943
Issue number1
Number of pages14
ISSN0004-637X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Jan 2023

    Research areas

  • MASS BLACK-HOLE, STAR-FORMATION, X-RAY, ALPHA EMISSION, HOST GALAXIES, EVOLUTION, STELLAR, CLASSIFICATION, METALLICITY, SELECTION

ID: 342438642