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Published March 10, 2016 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Hot Dust Obscured Galaxies with Excess Blue Light: Dual AGN or Single AGN Under Extreme Conditions?

Abstract

Hot dust-obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs) are a population of hyper-luminous infrared galaxies identified by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission from their very red mid-IR colors, and characterized by hot dust temperatures (T > 60 K). Several studies have shown clear evidence that the IR emission in these objects is powered by a highly dust-obscured active galactic nucleus (AGN) that shows close to Compton-thick absorption at X-ray wavelengths. Thanks to the high AGN obscuration, the host galaxy is easily observable, and has UV/optical colors usually consistent with those of a normal galaxy. Here we discuss a sub-population of eight Hot DOGs that show enhanced rest-frame UV/optical emission. We discuss three scenarios that might explain the excess UV emission: (i) unobscured light leaked from the AGN by reflection over the dust or by partial coverage of the accretion disk; (ii) a second unobscured AGN in the system; or (iii) a luminous young starburst. X-ray observations can help discriminate between these scenarios. We study in detail the blue excess Hot DOG WISE J020446.13–050640.8, which was serendipitously observed by Chandra/ACIS-I for 174.5 ks. The X-ray spectrum is consistent with a single, hyper-luminous, highly absorbed AGN, and is strongly inconsistent with the presence of a secondary unobscured AGN. Based on this, we argue that the excess blue emission in this object is most likely either due to reflection or a co-eval starburst. We favor the reflection scenario as the unobscured star formation rate needed to power the UV/optical emission would be ≳ 1000 M_⊙ yr^(−1). Deep polarimetry observations could confirm the reflection hypothesis.

Additional Information

© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2015 November 16; accepted 2016 February 1; published 2016 March 4. We thank Sangeeta Malhotra and James Rhoads for providing us with optical imaging data for the Cetus field. We also thank the anonymous referee for useful comments and suggestions. R.J.A. was supported by Gemini-CONICYT grant number 32120009 and FONDECYT grant number 1151408. FEB acknowledges support from CONICYT-Chile (Basal-CATA PFB-06/2007, FONDECYT 1141218, "EMBIGGEN" Anillo ACT1101), and the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. T.D.-S. acknowledges support from ALMA-CONYCIT project 31130005 and FONDECYT 1151239. This material is based upon work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Proposal No. 13-ADAP13-0092 issued through the Astrophysics Data Analysis Program. The scientific results reported in this article are based to a significant degree on data obtained from the Chandra Data Archive. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. The WIYN Observatory is a joint facility of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Indiana University, Yale University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University. Some of the observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona.

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Submitted - 1511.05155v2.pdf

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Created:
August 22, 2023
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October 18, 2023