TY - JOUR
T1 - The clustering of active galactic nuclei in the sloan digital sky survey
AU - Wake, David A.
AU - Miller, Christopher J.
AU - Di Matteo, Tiziana
AU - Nichol, Robert C.
AU - Pope, Adrian
AU - Szalay, Alexander S.
AU - Gray, Alexander
AU - Schneider, Donald P.
AU - York, Donald G.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Volker Springel and Lars Hernquist for their hydrodynamic simulations performed at the Center for Parallel Astrophysical Computing at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Jon Loveday, David Weinberg, Michael Vo-geley, and the anonymous referee for useful discussions and/ or comments. Funding for the creation and distribution of the SDSS7 Archive has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society.
PY - 2004/8/1
Y1 - 2004/8/1
N2 - We present the two-point correlation function (2PCF) of narrow-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) selected within the First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using a sample of 13,605 AGNs in the redshift range 0.055 < z < 0.2, we find that the AGN autocorrelation function is consistent with the observed galaxy autocorrelation function on scales from 0.2 to greater than 100 h-1 Mpc. The AGN hosts trace an intermediate population of galaxies and are not detected in either the bluest (youngest) disk-dominated galaxies or many of the reddest (oldest) galaxies. We show that the AGN 2PCF is dependent on the luminosity of the narrow [O III] emission line (L [O III]), with low L[O III] AGNs having a higher clustering amplitude than high L[O III] AGNs. This is consistent with lower activity AGNs residing in more massive galaxies than higher activity AGNs, and L[O III] providing a good indicator of the fueling rate. Using a model relating halo mass to black hole mass in cosmological simulations, we show that AGNs hosted by ∼1012 M⊙ dark matter halos have a 2PCF that matches that of the observed sample. This mass scale implies a mean black hole mass for the sample of MBH ∼ 108 M⊙.
AB - We present the two-point correlation function (2PCF) of narrow-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) selected within the First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Using a sample of 13,605 AGNs in the redshift range 0.055 < z < 0.2, we find that the AGN autocorrelation function is consistent with the observed galaxy autocorrelation function on scales from 0.2 to greater than 100 h-1 Mpc. The AGN hosts trace an intermediate population of galaxies and are not detected in either the bluest (youngest) disk-dominated galaxies or many of the reddest (oldest) galaxies. We show that the AGN 2PCF is dependent on the luminosity of the narrow [O III] emission line (L [O III]), with low L[O III] AGNs having a higher clustering amplitude than high L[O III] AGNs. This is consistent with lower activity AGNs residing in more massive galaxies than higher activity AGNs, and L[O III] providing a good indicator of the fueling rate. Using a model relating halo mass to black hole mass in cosmological simulations, we show that AGNs hosted by ∼1012 M⊙ dark matter halos have a 2PCF that matches that of the observed sample. This mass scale implies a mean black hole mass for the sample of MBH ∼ 108 M⊙.
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U2 - 10.1086/423317
DO - 10.1086/423317
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:4043140818
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 610
SP - L85-L88
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2 II
ER -