Speaker
Description
Given their dominance of the galaxy number density, dwarf galaxies are central to our understanding of galaxy formation. While the incidence of AGN and their impact on galaxy evolution has been extensively studied in massive galaxies, much less is known about the role of AGN in the evolution of dwarfs. We search for radiatively-efficient AGN in the nearby (0.1 < 𝑧 < 0.3) dwarf (8 < Log (M/MSun) < 10) population, using SED-fitting (via Prospector) applied to deep ultraviolet to mid-infrared photometry of 508 dwarf galaxies. Around a third of our dwarfs show signs of AGN activity. We compare the properties of our dwarf AGN to control samples, constructed from non-AGN, which have the same distributions of redshift and stellar mass as their AGN counterparts. Dwarf AGN hosts do not show strong differences, compared to the controls, in their distances to nodes, filaments and nearby massive galaxies. This indicates that AGN triggering in the dwarf regime is not strongly correlated with the environments in which their hosts reside. The fraction of AGN hosts with early-type morphology and those that are interacting are indistinguishable from the controls, suggesting that interactions do not play a significant role in inducing AGN activity in our sample. Finally, the star formation activity in dwarf AGN is only marginally lower than that in their control counterparts, suggesting that the presence of radiatively-efficient AGN does not lead to a significant, prompt quenching of star formation in these systems. from the LSST meeting
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