A catalogue of Type 2 active galactic nuclei in the 6dF Galaxy Survey

dc.contributor.authorSuresh, Sruthien
dc.contributor.authorHon, Wei Jeaten
dc.contributor.authorWebster, Rachel L.en
dc.contributor.authorWolf, Christianen
dc.contributor.authorOnken, Christopher A.en
dc.date.accessioned2026-01-02T09:42:00Z
dc.date.available2026-01-02T09:42:00Z
dc.date.issued2025-09-18en
dc.description.abstractActive galactic nuclei (AGNs) are the compact, energetic central regions of galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes that accrete surrounding gas and dust. Their optical spectra can be identified by strong emission-line signatures (broad and/or narrow lines). Those showing only narrow lines are classified as ‘Type 2’ AGN. Extensive surveys like SDSS cover AGN in the Northern Sky, but the equivalent coverage in the Southern Sky remains limited. We address this by presenting a new catalogue of Type 2 AGN from the 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS), which has 136304 spectra covering ∼ 17, 000 deg2, mainly of low-redshift galaxies. We use a median absolute deviation cut on the continuum-fitted spectrum to select emission line galaxies. AGN were identified by fitting the 6dFGS spectra with a modified Python QSO fitting tool (PyQSOFit). All selected spectra were visually inspected and corrected for fitting errors where necessary. 10492 narrow emission line galaxies were identified in 6dFGS, including ∼5000 Type 2 AGN classified from Baldwin–Phillips–Terlevich (BPT) diagram. They have a median redshift of z ∼ 0.032 and a median [O III] luminosity of log (L [OIII]/ergs s-1) ≈ 40.04.en
dc.description.sponsorshipWe thank the anonymous referee for their generous and constructive comments in finalizing the manuscript. This research was supported [or ‘Parts of this research were supported’] by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. The national facility capability for SkyMapper has been funded through ARC LIEF grant LE130100104 from the Australian Research Council, awarded to the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne, Curtin University of Technology, Monash University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory. SkyMapper is owned and operated by The Australian National University’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The survey data were processed and provided by the SkyMapper Team at ANU. The SkyMapper node of the All-Sky Virtual Observatory (ASVO) is hosted at the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). Development and support of the SkyMapper node of the ASVO has been funded in part by Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) and the Australian Government through the Commonwealth’s Education Investment Fund (EIF) and National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), particularly the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR) and the Australian National Data Service Projects (ANDS). This work has made use of data from the Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max-Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, The Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen’s University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. This work has made use of data from The Digitised Sky Survey, which was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope. The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with the permission of these institutions.en
dc.description.statusPeer-revieweden
dc.format.extent15en
dc.identifier.issn0035-8711en
dc.identifier.otherORCID:/0000-0002-4569-016X/work/199007051en
dc.identifier.scopus105019740459en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/733802525
dc.language.isoenen
dc.provenanceThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.en
dc.rights © 2025 The Author(s)en
dc.sourceMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societyen
dc.subject(galaxies:) quasars: emission linesen
dc.subjectcataloguesen
dc.subjectgalaxies: activeen
dc.subjectgalaxies: nucleien
dc.subjectgalaxies: Seyferten
dc.subjecttechniques: spectroscopicen
dc.titleA catalogue of Type 2 active galactic nuclei in the 6dF Galaxy Surveyen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dspace.entity.typePublicationen
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage3663en
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage3649en
local.contributor.affiliationSuresh, Sruthi; University of Melbourneen
local.contributor.affiliationHon, Wei Jeat; University of Melbourneen
local.contributor.affiliationWebster, Rachel L.; University of Melbourneen
local.contributor.affiliationWolf, Christian; The Australian National Universityen
local.contributor.affiliationOnken, Christopher A.; The Australian National Universityen
local.identifier.citationvolume543en
local.identifier.doi10.1093/mnras/staf1591en
local.identifier.pured5d2d338-90d3-4424-b979-bf03830d29d2en
local.identifier.urlhttps://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105019740459en
local.type.statusPublisheden

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