A possible binary AGN in Mrk\,622? [GA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1711.06655


Mrk\,622 is a Compton Thick AGN and a double-peaked narrow emission line galaxy, thus a dual AGN candidate. In this work, new optical long-slit spectroscopic observations clearly show that this object is rather a triple peaked narrow emission line galaxy, with both blue and red shifted narrow emission lines, as well as a much narrower emission line centred at the host galaxy systemic velocity. The average velocity offset between the blue and red shifted components is $\sim$500 km\,s$^{-1}$, which is producing the apparent double-peaked emission lines. These two components are in the loci of AGN in the Baldwin, Phillips \& Terlevich (BPT) diagrams and are found to be spatially separated by $\sim$76 pc. Analysis of the optical spatially resolved spectroscopic observations presented in this work favours that Mrk\,622 is a system consisting of a Composite AGN amidst a binary AGN candidate, likely the result of a recent merger. This notwithstanding, outflows from a starburst, or single AGN could also explain the triple nature of the emission lines.

Read this paper on arXiv…

E. Benitez, J. Rodriguez-Espinosa, I. Cruz-Gonzalez, et. al.
Mon, 20 Nov 17
9/56

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables. Accepted in MNRAS Letters. 5 pages, 3 tables, 3 figures