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arXiv · astro-ph/0205409

The environment of active objects in the nearby universe

Georgina V. Coldwell·Hector J. Martinez·Diego G. Lambas
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Abstract

We study the galaxy environment of active galaxies, radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars in the redshift range $0.1\leq z\leq0.25$. We use APM galaxies in order to explore the local galaxy overdensity and the $b_J-R$ colour distribution of neighbouring galaxies of these target samples. For comparison, we perform similar analysis on samples of Abell clusters with X-ray emission, and samples of Abell clusters with richness R=1 and R=0. The projected cross-correlations show that the samples of quasars and active galaxies reside in regions of galaxy density enhancements lower than those typical of R=0 clusters. We also find that in the nearby universe the local galaxy overdensity of radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars are comparable. The analysis of the distribution of $b_J-R$ galaxy colour indexes suggests that the environment of quasars is not strongly dominated by a population of red galaxies, characteristic of rich Abell cluster, an effect that is more clearly appreciated for our sample of radio-loud quasars.

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Georgina V. Coldwell, Hector J. Martinez, Diego G. Lambas. 2002-05-23. The environment of active objects in the nearby universe. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05713.x

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