Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Line Regions: The "Missing Link" in the Active Galactic Nucleus Population
Date
2007-11-21T17:05:30Z
Authors
Dudik, Rachel
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Abstract
The horizon of the universe, once thought to extend only to the disk of the Milky Way, is now known to embrace a host of diverse galaxies, from active galaxies such as quasars and Seyfert galaxies to normal galaxies such as our own. The recent discovery that virtually all local galaxies harbor massive nuclear black holes, has provided convincing evidence that active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and normal galaxies are indeed connected. The nature of this connection and the evolutionary history connecting them, however, continues to be elusive. Low Ionization Nuclear Emission-line Regions (LINERs) are the dominant population of 'active' galaxies in our local universe and may indeed be the missing piece to the evolutionary puzzle. LINERs are defined by optical line ratios uncharacteristic of photoionization by normal main sequence stars. While classical AGNs represent at most a few percent of the galaxy population, LINERs constitute as much as 50% of the total local extragalactic population. However, despite several decades of intense research, the ionization mechanism responsible for the unusual LINER spectrum remains a mystery. What is the ionization mechanism responsible for the empirical line ratios characteristic of LINER galaxies? How do LINERs fit into the overall evolution of galaxies as we know it? Are LINERs a subclass of AGN? What is the evolutionary connection, if any, between galaxies with heavy starburst activity and AGNs? The majority of LINERs are dust enshrouded and therefore very luminous in the far-infrared. The far-infrared (far-IR) luminosity to the luminosity in the optical Bband (center = 4400A), the so-called IR-brightness ratio, can be used as a gauge of the amount of dust in host galaxy. LINERs span a wide range of LFIR/LB ratios, tending predominantly toward the IR-bright end. However, the majority of research to-date has been based on optically selected samples which are partial toward IR-faint LINERs. This bias toward IR-faint galaxies could have important consequences on statistical analyses which examine the fraction of LINERs hosting AGNs. In order for an accurate picture of LINERs to emerge, IR-bright as well as IR-faint galaxies must be studied. What fraction of IR-bright LINERs are AGNs? In light of the open questions regarding these remarkable objects, the central goal of this dissertation is to carry out a systematic multi-wavelength X-ray imaging and Infrared spectroscopic survey of nearby LINERs spanning a wide range of IRbrightness ratios in order to 1) characterize the dominant energy source responsible for their optical line ratios, 2) compare the AGN detection rate in our infrared selected sample with the optically selected samples, 3) determine the luminosities, spectral characteristics and accretion properties of the AGN-LINERs and compare them with the standard active galaxies, and finally, 4) relate the host galaxies properties to the properties of the central source in an attempt to constrain the role of LINERs in galaxy evolution and formation models.
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Keywords
AGN, Starbursts, X-ray, Infrared, Black Holes, Astronomy