LeMMINGs - IV. The X-ray properties of a statistically complete sample of the nuclei in active and inactive galaxies from the Palomar sample
View / Open Files
Authors
Williams, DRA
Pahari, M
Baldi, RD
McHardy, IM
Mathur, S
Beswick, RJ
Beri, A
Boorman, P
Aalto, S
Alberdi, A
Argo, MK
Dullo, BT
Fenech, DM
Knapen, JH
Martí-Vidal, I
Moldon, J
Mundell, CG
Muxlow, TWB
Panessa, F
Pérez-Torres, M
Saikia, P
Shankar, F
Stevens, IR
Uttley, P
Publication Date
2022-01-19Journal Title
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
ISSN
0035-8711
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Williams, D., Pahari, M., Baldi, R., McHardy, I., Mathur, S., Beswick, R., Beri, A., et al. (2022). LeMMINGs - IV. The X-ray properties of a statistically complete sample of the nuclei in active and inactive galaxies from the Palomar sample. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3310
Abstract
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title>
<jats:p>All 280 of the statistically complete Palomar sample of nearby (&lt;120 Mpc) galaxies δ &gt; 20° have been observed at 1.5 GHz as part of the LeMMINGs e-MERLIN legacy survey. Here, we present Chandra X-ray observations of the nuclei of 213 of these galaxies, including a statistically complete sub-set of 113 galaxies in the declination range 40° &lt;δ &lt; 65°. We observed galaxies of all optical spectral types, including ‘active’ galaxies [e.g. low-ionization nuclear emission line regions (LINERs) and Seyferts] and ‘inactive’ galaxies like ${\rm H\, \small {II}}$ galaxies and absorption line galaxies (ALG). The X-ray flux limit of our survey is 1.65 × 10−14 erg s−1 cm−2 (0.3−10 keV). We detect X-ray emission coincident within 2 arcsec of the nucleus in 150/213 galaxies, including 13/14 Seyferts, 68/77 LINERs, 13/22 ALGs and 56/100 ${\rm H\, \small {II}}$ galaxies, but cannot completely rule out contamination from non-AGN processes in sources with nuclear luminosities $\lesssim 10^{39}$ erg s−1. We construct an X-ray Luminosity function (XLF) and find that the local galaxy XLF, when including all active galactic nucleus (AGN) types, can be represented as a single power law of slope −0.54 ± 0.06. The Eddington ratio of the Seyferts is usually 2−4 decades higher than that of the LINERs, ALGs, and ${\rm H\, \small {II}}$ galaxies, which are mostly detected with Eddington ratios $\lesssim 10^{-3}$. Using [${\rm O\, \small {III}}$] line measurements and black hole masses from the literature, we show that LINERs, ${\rm H\, \small {II}}$ galaxies and ALGs follow similar correlations to low luminosities, suggesting that some ‘inactive’ galaxies may harbour AGN.</jats:p>
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab3310
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/330962
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.