A systematic study of the nuclear emission of a sample of 97 spirals in isolated galaxy pairs with mixed morphology (E+S) shows that: 1) AGN activity is found in 40% of the spiral galaxies in these pairs, 2) Only one out of the 39 AGN found has type 1 (Broad line Component) activity, and 3) AGN tend to have closer companions than star forming galaxies. These results are at odds with a simple Unified Model for Seyferts, where only obscuration/orientation effects are of relevance, and neatly support an evolutionary scenario where interactions trigger nuclear activity, and obscuration/orientation effects may be complementary in a certain evolutionary phase.
@article{arxiv.0809.1680,
title = {Activity induced by Gravitational Interaction in Galaxy Pairs},
author = {D. Dultzin and J. J. Gonzalez and Y. Krongold and H. Hernandez-Toledo and E. M. Huerta and I. Cruz-Gonzalez and L. Olguin and P. Marziani and F. Hernandez-Ibarra},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0809.1680},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
Proceedings of The Central Kiloparsec: Active Galactic Nuclei and Their Hosts, held in Crete, Greece, 4 - 6 June 2008, to appear in Volume 79 of the Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana