Seminars at FGG
ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI, HOST GALAXIES, AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS
Speaker: Maria Babakhanyan Stone (Tuorla Observatory, Finland)
Date and time: 2017-10-18 12:00
The overarching goal of the project is to push forward the current state of knowledge of the evolution of black holes, their host galaxies, and environments by investigating the influence of AGN activity on the nearby companion galaxies. The interaction of the AGN-host galaxy with its environment could lead to star formation events in companion galaxies. In this research project, a companion galaxy to AGN-host galaxy is defined as an object within 80kpc projected distance from the QSO-host galaxies (Bettoni et al. 2017). In Bettoni et al. (2017), the authors identified a group of QSOs with companions. They obtained narrow-slit spectroscopy data both for the QSO-host galaxy in the off-center area and for the accompanying companion galaxies nearby. These observations enabled identification of more precise redshift values which pinpointed whether the objects were true companions or a contaminant (a star, a background/ foreground galaxy). For the true companions, the authors then proceeded with an initial analysis of star formation rate (SFR) and the relation of SFR in companion galaxies to the AGN activity. However, during the previous observing runs, they obtained spectra only for one part of the potential QSO-companion systems (due to poor observing conditions). Thus, during this run (Proposal 56-018), we would like to obtain spectra of the remaining objects and their companions via the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) with ALFOSC instrument. This will allow us to increase the sample size significantly when determining how the presence of AGN activity is related to star formation in close companion galaxies.