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Accepted manuscript

Clustering and physical properties of AGN and Star-Forming Galaxies at fixed stellar mass: does assembly bias have a role in AGN activity?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2025

Amrita Banerjee ,
Biswajit Pandey Open the ORCID record for Biswajit Pandey [Opens in a new window]  and
Anindita Nandi
Amrita Banerjee
Affiliation:
Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
Biswajit Pandey*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, 731235, West Bengal, India
Anindita Nandi
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, 731235, West Bengal, India
*
Author for correspondence: Biswajit Pandey, Email: biswap@visva-bharati.ac.in.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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We analyze a volume-limited sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to compare the spatial clustering and physical properties of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and star-forming galaxies (SFG) at fixed stellar mass. We find no statistically significant difference in clustering strength or local density between AGN and SFG. However, after matching their stellar mass distributions, we detect statistically significant differences (at a confidence level > 99.99%) in colour, star formation rate (SFR), 4000 Å break measurements (D4000), and morphology. These differences persist across both low- and high-density environments, suggesting that AGN are not driven by environmental factors. The development of favourable conditions for AGN activity within a galaxy may depend on the diverse evolutionary histories of galaxies. Our results imply that AGN activity may arise stochastically, modulated by the complex assembly history of galaxies.

Keywords

methods: data analysismethods: statisticalgalaxies: statistics
Type
Research Article
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Accepted manuscript , pp. 1 - 16
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Astronomical Society of Australia