Properties of the environment around active galactic nucleus / luminous galaxy pairs through the HSC wide survey

Abstract

Abstract We investigated the properties of active galactic nucleus (AGN) environments, particularly environments where the association of a luminous galaxy (LG) is found within 4 Mpc from an AGN with redshift 0.8–1.1. For comparison, three additional AGN environments, (namely, AGNs of all types, type 1 AGNs with X-ray and/or radio detection, and type 2 AGNs) and an environment of blue M*, the characteristic luminosity of the Schechter function, galaxies were investigated. The cross-correlation function with the surrounding galaxies was measured and compared between the AGN and blue galaxy samples. We also compared the distributions of color, absolute magnitude, and stellar mass of the galaxies around such target objects. The properties of clusters detected using surrounding galaxies selected based on a photometric redshift were examined and compared for different samples. The target AGNs were drawn from the Million Quasars (MILLIQUAS) catalog, and the blue galaxies were drawn from six redshift survey catalogs (SDSS, WiggleZ, DEEP2, VVDS, VIPERS, and PRIMUS). The galaxies used as a measure of the environment around the targets were drawn from the S18a internal data released by the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program. We found that, among the five AGN and blue galaxy samples considered, the environment of AGN–LG pairs is the most enriched with luminous galaxies. We also found an enhancement in the number of mass-selected clusters in the AGN–LG pair sample against those in the other samples. The results obtained in this study indicate that existence of multiple clusters is the major driver in the association of AGNs and LGs, rather than a single large-mass dark matter halo hosting the AGN.