Spitzer/IRS spectral stacking analysis of GOALS gal.

We present the results of a stacking analysis performed on Spitzer/Infrared Spectrograph high-resolution mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra of luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) in the Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey. By binning in relation to mid-IR active galactic nucleus (AGN) fraction and stacking spectra, we detect bright emission lines [NeII] and [NeIII], which trace star formation, and fainter emission lines [NeV] and [OIV], which trace AGN activity, throughout the sample. We find that the [NeII] luminosity is fairly constant across all AGN fraction bins, while the [OIV] and [NeV] luminosities increase by over an order of magnitude. Our measured average line ratios, [NeV]/[NeII] and [OIV]/[NeII], at low AGN fraction are similar to HII galaxies, while the line ratios at high AGN fraction are similar to LINERs and Seyferts. We decompose the [OIV] luminosity into star formation and AGN components by fitting the [OIV] luminosity as a function of the [NeII] luminosity and the mid-IR AGN fraction. The [OIV] luminosity in LIRGs is dominated by star formation for mid-IR AGN fractions <~0.3. With the corrected [OIV] luminosity, we calculate black hole accretion rates (BHARs) ranging from 10^-5^M_{sun}/yr at low AGN fractions to 0.2M{sun}_/yr at the highest AGN fractions. We find that using the [OIV] luminosity, without correcting for star formation, can lead to overestimation of the BHAR by up to a factor of 30 in starburst-dominated LIRGs. Finally, we show that the BHAR/star formation rate ratio increases by more than three orders of magnitude as a function of mid-IR AGN fraction in LIRGs.

Identifier
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/934/27
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/934/27
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/934/27
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/934/27
Provenance
Creator Stone M.; Pope A.; McKinney J.; Armus L.; Diaz-Santos T.; Inami H.,Kirkpatrick A.; Stierwalt S.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2024
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Cosmology; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; Interdisciplinary Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics