We present updated estimates of Galactic foreground emission using seven years of WMAP data. Using the power spectrum of differences between multi-frequency template-cleaned maps, we find no evidence for foreground contamination outside of the updated (KQ85y7) foreground mask. We place a 15uK upper bound on rms foreground contamination in the cleaned maps used for cosmological analysis. Further, the cleaning process requires only three power-law foregrounds outside of the mask. We find no evidence for polarized foregrounds beyond those from soft (steep-spectrum) synchrotron and thermal dust emission; in particular we find no indication in the polarization data of an extra "haze" of hard synchrotron emission from energetic electrons near the Galactic center. We provide an updated map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) using the internal linear combination method, updated foreground masks, and updates to point source catalogs using two different techniques. With additional years of data, we now detect 471 point sources using a five-band technique and 417 sources using a three-band CMB-free technique. In total there are 62 newly detected point sources, a 12% increase over the five-year release.
An analysis of archival mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra of Seyfert galaxies from the Spitzer Space Telescope observations is presented. We characterize the nature of the mid-IR active nuclear continuum by subtracting a template starburst spectrum from the Seyfert spectra. The long wavelength part of the spectrum contains a strong contribution from the starburst-heated cool dust; this is used to effectively separate starburst-dominated Seyferts from those dominated by the active nuclear continuum. Within the latter category, the strength of the active nuclear continuum drops rapidly beyond ~20um. On average, type 2 Seyferts have weaker short-wavelength active nuclear continua as compared to type 1 Seyferts. Type 2 Seyferts can be divided into two types, those with strong polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) bands and those without.
We present the results of a dust reverberation survey for 17 nearby Seyfert 1 galaxies, which provides the largest homogeneous data collection for the radius of the innermost dust torus. A delayed response of the K-band light curve after the V-band light curve was found for all targets, and 49 measurements of lag times between the flux variation of the dust emission in the K band and that of the optical continuum emission in the V band were obtained by the cross-correlation function analysis and also by an alternative method for estimating the maximum likelihood lag. The lag times strongly correlated with the optical luminosity in the luminosity range of M_V_=-16 to -22 mag, and the regression analysis was performed to obtain the correlation log {Delta}t (days)=-2.11 -0.2 M_V_ assuming {Delta}t{prop.to}L^0.5^, which was theoretically expected. We discuss the possible origins of the intrinsic scatter of the dust lag-luminosity correlation, which was estimated to be approximately 0.13 dex, and we find that the difference of internal extinction and delayed response of changes in lag times to the flux variations could have partly contributed to intrinsic scatter. However, we could not detect any systematic change of the correlation with the subclass of the Seyfert type or the Eddington ratio. Finally, we compare the dust reverberation radius with the near-infrared interferometric radius of the dust torus and the reverberation radius of broad Balmer emission lines. The interferometric radius in the K band was found to be systematically larger than the dust reverberation radius in the same band by the about a factor of two, which could be interpreted by the difference between the flux-weighted radius and response-weighted radius of the innermost dust torus. The reverberation radius of the broad Balmer emission lines was found to be systematically smaller than the dust reverberation radius by about a factor of four to five, which strongly supports the unified scheme of the Seyfert type of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Moreover, we examined the radius-luminosity correlations for the hard X-ray (14-195 keV) and the [O IV] {lambda}25.89 {mu}m emission-line luminosities, which would be applicable for obscured AGNs.
This paper is a catalog of Seyfert 2 galaxies observed in the 2-10keV band (339 flux entries). In total, it contains data on 150 objects; for 76 objects, a positive detection is reported, while for the remaining sources, 2{sigma} upper limits to the X-ray emission are given. Most of the data have been collected from the literature over a period starting from 1974 up to the middle of 1995. Accurate searches of literature and databases were performed for all objects, and frequently spectral fits were reevaluated in order to make the data in the catalog uniform and complete. Some unpublished data are also included. For six objects, EXOSAT/ME data have been extracted from the satellite database and analyzed; the 13 fluxes obtained have been added to the present catalog. The compilation of hard X-ray data has been complemented with data in the soft (0.1-3keV) X-ray band, as well as in ultraviolet (1450A), optical (5500A), infrared (3.5, 12, 25, 60, 100mm), and radio (6cm) bands. Fluxes of the [O III] {lambda}5007 and H{beta} emission lines as well as the Balmer decrement H{alpha}/H{beta}, and axial ratio a/b are also given. The present database is meant to be a useful tool for the study of the Seyfert 2 phenomenon in its various aspects.
The magnitude-limited catalog of the Southern Sky Redshift Survey (SSRS2, Cat. <J/AJ/116/1>) is used to characterize the properties of galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Using emission-line ratios, we identify a total of 162 (3%) Seyfert galaxies out of the parent sample with 5399 galaxies. The sample contains 121 Seyfert 2 galaxies and 41 Seyfert 1 galaxies. The SSRS2 Seyfert galaxies are predominantly in spirals of types Sb and earlier or in galaxies with perturbed appearance as the result of strong interactions or mergers. Seyfert galaxies in this sample are twice as common in barred hosts as the non-Seyfert galaxies. By assigning galaxies to groups using a percolation algorithm, we find that the Seyfert galaxies in the SSRS2 are more likely to be found in binary systems when compared with galaxies in the SSRS2 parent sample. However, there is no statistically significant difference between the Seyfert and SSRS2 parent sample when systems with more than two galaxies are considered. The analysis of the present sample suggests that there is a stronger correlation between the presence of the AGN phenomenon with internal properties of galaxies (morphology, presence of bar, luminosity) than with environmental effects (local galaxy density, group velocity dispersion, nearest neighbor distance).
The occurrence of Seyfert galaxies in 6 samples representative of different cosmological environments (i.e. isolated pairs, compact and loose groups) is analysed. To avoid biases linked to subjective sample selection criteria only canonical samples, taken from the literature, are considered. It is found that the average frequency of Seyferts in all samples, is near 2%. Most Seyferts lying in pairs and compact groups show disturbed morphological appearance, whilst in loose groups disturbed and ``isolated'' Seyferts have roughly the same proportion. Then, within each sample, structures which host a Seyfert are compared to structures which do not. No appreciable differences regarding dynamical properties are found.
Active galactic nucleus (AGN) driven outflows are believed to play an important role in regulating the growth of galaxies, mostly via negative feedback. However, their effects on their hosts are far from clear, especially for low- and moderate-luminosity Seyferts. To investigate this issue, we obtained cold molecular gas observations, traced by the CO(2-1) transition, using the NOEMA interferometer of five nearby (distances between 19 and 58Mpc) Seyfert galaxies. The resolution of ~0.3-0.8 (~30-100pc) and field of view of NOEMA allowed us to study the CO(2-1) morphology and kinematics in the nuclear regions (~100pc) and up to radial distances of ~900pc. We detected CO(2-1) emission in all five galaxies with disky or circumnuclear ring-like morphologies. We derived cold molecular gas masses on nuclear (~100pc) and circumnuclear (~650pc) scales in the range from 10^6^ to 10^7^M_{sun}_ and from 10^7^ to 10^8^M_{sun}_, respectively. In all of our galaxies, the bulk of this gas is rotating in the plane of the galaxy. However, noncircular motions are also present. In NGC 4253, NGC 4388, and NGC 7465, we can ascribe the streaming motions to the presence of a large-scale bar. In Mrk 1066 and NGC 4388, the noncircular motions in the nuclear regions are explained as outflowing material due to the interaction of the AGN wind with molecular gas in the galaxy disk. We conclude that for an unambiguous and precise interpretation of the kinematics of the cold molecular gas, we need detailed knowledge of the host galaxy (i.e., presence of bars, interactions, etc.), and also of the ionized gas kinematics and ionization cone geometry.
We present the SFI++ data set, a homogeneously derived catalog of photometric and rotational properties and the Tully-Fisher distances and peculiar velocities derived from them. We make use of digital optical images, optical long-slit spectra, and global HI line profiles to extract parameters of relevance to disk scaling relations, incorporating several previously published data sets as well as a new photometric sample of some 2000 objects. According to the completeness of available redshift samples over the sky area, we exploit both a modified percolation algorithm and the Voronoi-Delaunay method to assign individual galaxies to groups as well as clusters, thereby reducing scatter introduced by local orbital motions. We also provide corrections to the peculiar velocities for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous Malmquist bias, making use of the 2MASS Redshift Survey density field to approximate large-scale structure. The final SFI++ peculiar velocity catalog contains 4861 field and cluster galaxies.
We present a comparison of star formation rates (SFR) determined from mid-infrared 7.7um polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) luminosity [SFR(PAH)], from 1.4GHz radio luminosity [SFR(radio)], and from far-ultraviolet luminosity [SFR(UV)] for a sample of 287 starburst galaxies with z<0.5 having Spitzer IRS observations.
We combine Sloan Digitital Sky Survey (SDSS) and WISE photometry for the full SDSS spectroscopic galaxy sample, creating spectral energy distributions (SEDs) that cover {lambda}=0.4-22{mu}m for an unprecedentedly large and comprehensive sample of 858365 present-epoch galaxies. Using MAGPHYS (da Cunha+ 2008MNRAS.388.1595D), we then simultaneously and consistently model both the attenuated stellar SED and the dust emission at 12 and 22{mu}m, producing robust new calibrations for monochromatic mid-IR star formation rate (SFR) proxies. These modeling results provide the first mid-IR-based view of the bimodality in star formation activity among galaxies, exhibiting the sequence of star-forming galaxies ("main sequence") with a slope of dlogSFR/dlogM_*_=0.80 and a scatter of 0.39dex. We find that these new SFRs along the SF main sequence are systematically lower by a factor of 1.4 than those derived from optical spectroscopy. We show that for most present-day galaxies, the 0.4-22{mu}m SED fits can exquisitely predict the fluxes measured by Herschel at much longer wavelengths. Our analysis also illustrates that the majority of stars in the present-day universe are formed in luminous galaxies (~L*) in and around the "green valley" of the color-luminosity plane. We make publicly available the matched photometry catalog and SED modeling results.
