No Arabic abstract
We explore the presence of active galactic nuclei (AGN)/black hole (BH) in Green Pea galaxies (GPs), motivated by the presence of high ionization emission lines such as HeII and [NeIII] in their optical spectra. In order to identify AGN candidates, we used mid-infrared (MIR) photometric observations from the all-sky Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission for a sample of 516 GPs. We select 58 GPs as candidate AGN based on a stringent 3-band WISE color diagnostic. Using multi-epoch photometry of W1 and W2 bands from the WISE/NEOWISE-R observations, we find 38 GPs showing significant variability in both the WISE bands. Four of these were selected as AGN by the WISE 3-band color diagnostic as well. Interestingly, we find a high fraction of MIR variable sources among GPs which demonstrates the uniqueness and importance of studying these extreme objects. Through this work, we demonstrate that photometric variability is a promising tool to select AGN that may be missed by other selection techniques (including optical emission-line ratios and X-ray emission) in star-formation dominated, low-mass, low-metallicity galaxies.
We analyze the spectra of $10$ Green Pea galaxies, previously studied by Henry et al. (2015), using a semi-analytical line transfer (SALT) model to interpret emission and absorption features observed in UV galactic spectra. We focus our analysis on various ionization states of silicon, associated with the cool ($sim 10^4$ K) and warm ($sim 10^5$ K) gas. By analyzing low-ionization lines, we study the relationships between the distribution and kinematics of the outflowing H I gas and the observed Ly$alpha$ escape fraction, $f_{esc}^{Lyalpha}$, as well as the Ly$alpha$ emission peak separation, $Delta_{peak}$. We find that outflow geometries which leave a portion of the source uncovered along the line of sight create the best conditions for Ly$alpha$ escape and have narrow peak separations, while geometries which block the observers view of the source create the worst conditions for Ly$alpha$ escape and have large peak separations. To isolate the effects of outflow kinematics, we restricted our testing set to galaxies with spherical outflows and found that $f_{esc}^{Lyalpha}$ and the Ly$alpha$ luminosity both increase with the extent of the galactic winds. A simple estimate suggests that the collisional excitation of neutral hydrogen by free electrons in the cool gas of the winds can account for the Ly$alpha$ luminosity observed in these objects. Finally, we speculate on the relationship between outflows and the escape of ionizing radiation from the CGM.
Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), with masses in the range $100-10^{6}$ M$_{odot}$, are the link between stellar-mass BHs and supermassive BHs (SMBHs). They are thought to be the seeds from which SMBHs grow, which would explain the existence of quasars with BH masses of up to 10$^{10}$ M$_{odot}$ when the Universe was only 0.8 Gyr old. The detection and study of IMBHs has thus strong implications for understanding how SMBHs form and grow, which is ultimately linked to galaxy formation and growth, as well as for studies of the universality of BH accretion or the epoch of reionisation. Proving the existence of seed BHs in the early Universe is not yet feasible with the current instrumentation; however, those seeds that did not grow into SMBHs can be found as IMBHs in the nearby Universe. In this review I summarize the different scenarios proposed for the formation of IMBHs and gather all the observational evidence for the few hundreds of nearby IMBH candidates found in dwarf galaxies, globular clusters, and ultraluminous X-ray sources, as well as the possible discovery of a few seed BHs at high redshift. I discuss some of their properties, such as X-ray weakness and location in the BH mass scaling relations, and the possibility to discover IMBHs through high velocity clouds, tidal disruption events, gravitational waves, or accretion disks in active galactic nuclei. I finalize with the prospects for the detection of IMBHs with up-coming observatories.
The article summarizes the observational evidence for the existence of massive black holes, as well as the current knowledge about their abundance, their mass and spin distributions, and their cosmic evolution within and together with their galactic hosts. We finish with a discussion of how massive black holes may in the future serve as laboratories for testing the theory of gravitation in the extreme curvature regimes near the event horizon.
We use integral field spectroscopy, from the SWIFT and Palm3K instruments, to perform a spatially-resolved spectroscopic analysis of four nearby highly star-forming `green pea (GP) galaxies, that are likely analogues of star-forming systems at z~2.5-3. By studying emission-line maps in H$alpha$, [NII]$lambda lambda$6548,6584 and [SII]$lambda$$lambda$6716,6731, we explore the kinematic morphology of these systems and constrain properties such as gas-phase metallicities, electron densities and gas-ionization mechanisms. Two of our GPs are rotationally-supported while the others are dispersion-dominated systems. The rotationally-supported galaxies both show evidence for recent or ongoing mergers. However, given that these systems have intact disks, these interactions are likely to have low mass ratios (i.e. minor mergers), suggesting that the minor-merger process may be partly responsible for the high SFRs seen in these GPs. Nevertheless, the fact that the other two GPs appear morphologically undisturbed suggests that mergers (including minor mergers) are not necessary for driving the high star formation rates in such galaxies. We show that the GPs are metal-poor systems (25-40 per cent of solar) and that the gas ionization is not driven by AGN in any of our systems, indicating that AGN activity is not co-eval with star formation in these starbursting galaxies.
Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) is well known for providing detailed insight of extended sources thanks to the possibility of handling space resolved spectroscopic information. Simple and straightforward analysis such as single line fitting yield interesting results, although it might miss a more complete picture in many cases. Violent star forming regions, such as starburst galaxies, display very complex emission line profiles due to multiple kinematic components superposed in the line of sight. We perform a spatially resolved kinematical study of a single Green Pea (GP) galaxy, SDSSJ083843.63+385350.5, using a new method for analyzing Integral Field Unit (IFU) observations of emission line spectra. The method considers the presence of multiple components in the emission-line profiles and makes use of a statistical indicator to determine the meaningful number of components to fit the observed profiles. We are able to identify three distinct kinematic features throughout the field and discuss their link with a rotating component, a strong outflow and a turbulent mixing layer. We also derive an updated star formation rate for ourobj and discuss the link between the observed signatures of a large scale outflow and of the Lyman continuum (LyC) leakage detected in GP galaxies.