Abstract

<i>Context. <i/> Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have typically been discovered in massive galaxies of high metallicity.<i>Aims. <i/>We attempt to increase the number of AGN candidates in low metallicity galaxies. We present VLT/UVES and archival VLT/FORS1 spectroscopic and NTT/SUSI2 photometric observations of the low-metallicity emission-line galaxy Tol 2240–384 and perform a detailed study of its morphology, chemical composition, and emission-line profiles.<i>Methods. <i/>The profiles of emission lines in the UVES and FORS1 spectra are decomposed into several components with different kinematical properties by performing multicomponent fitting with Gaussians. We determine abundances of nitrogen, oxygen, neon, sulfur, chlorine, argon, and iron by analyzing the fluxes of narrow components of the emission lines using empirical methods. We verify with a photoionisation model that the physics of the narrow-line component gas is similar to that in common metal-poor galaxies.<i>Results. <i/>Image deconvolution reveals two high-surface brightness regions in Tol 2240–384 separated by 2.4 kpc. The brightest southwestern region is surrounded by intense ionised gas emission that strongly affects the observed <i>B<i/>–<i>R<i/> colour on a spatial scale of ~5 kpc. The profiles of the strong emission lines in the UVES spectrum are asymmetric and all these lines apart from H<i>α<i/> and H<i>β<i/> can be fitted by two Gaussians of <i>FWHM<i/> ~ 75–92 km s<sup>-1<sup/> separated by ~80 km s<sup>-1<sup/> implying that there are two regions of ionised gas emitting narrow lines. The oxygen abundances in both regions are equal within the errors and in the range 12 + O/H = 7.83–7.89. The shapes of the H<i>α<i/> and H<i>β<i/> lines are more complex. In particular, the H<i>α<i/> emission line consists of two broad components of <i>FWHM<i/> ~ 700 km s<sup>-1<sup/> and 2300 km s<sup>-1<sup/>, in addition to narrow components of two regions revealed from profiles of other lines. This broad emission in H<i>α<i/> and H<i>β<i/> associated with the high-excitation, brighter southwestern H ii region of the galaxy is also present in the archival low- and medium-resolution VLT/FORS1 spectra. The extraordinarily high luminosity of the broad H<i>α<i/> line of 3 × 10<sup>41<sup/> erg s<sup>-1<sup/> cannot be accounted for by massive stars at different stages of their evolution. The broad H<i>α<i/> emission persists over a period of 7 years, which excludes supernovae as a powering mechanism of this emission. This emission most likely arises from an accretion disc around a black hole of mass ~10<sup>7<sup/> .

Highlights

  • Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are understood to be powered by massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, accreting gas from their surroundings

  • Image deconvolution reveals two high-surface brightness regions in Tol 2240–384 separated by 2.4 kpc

  • We have presented 8.2 m Very Large Telescope (VLT) observations with the UVES and the FORS1 spectrographs, and 3.5m ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) U, B, R imaging of the low-metallicity emission-line galaxy Tol 2240–384

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Summary

Introduction

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are understood to be powered by massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, accreting gas from their surroundings. Izotov et al (2007) and Izotov & Thuan (2008) demonstrated that broad-line AGNs with much lower metallicities probably exist, they occupy a region in the diagnostic diagram differing from that of more metal-rich AGNs and are extremely rare They identified four of these galaxies, which were found to have oxygen abundances 12 + log O/H in the range 7.36–7.99 on the basis of a systematic search for extremely metal-deficient emission-line dwarf galaxies in the SDSS Data Release 5 (DR5) database of 675 000 spectra.

Spectroscopy
Photometry
Morphology of Tol 2240-384
Location in the emission-line diagnostic diagram
Empirical analysis
Photoionisation model
Broad emission
Findings
Conclusions

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