S19A0056abst

S19A0056

We propose LGS-AO-assisted high-spatial-resolution infrared K- (λ = 2.2 µm) and L′-band (λ = 3.8 µm) imaging observations of nearby gas-rich infrared luminous merging galaxies. We aim to (1) detect spatially-unresolved, red K−L′ point sources, the signatures of actively mass accreting supermassive blackholes (SMBHs), or AGN activity, deeply buried (and so optically elusive) in individual merging nuclei, and (2) quantitatively estimate the intrinsic AGN luminosities to a very faint luminosity level (L_bol ∼ 10⁴² ergs s⁻¹ at z ∼ 0.1). Our scientific goals are to (1) obtain an observational constraint on how SMBHs are activated and grow in mass, during gas-rich galaxy merger process, and (2) provide important insights for the cold dark matter based galaxy formation theory which postulates that small gas-rich galaxies with central SMBHs merge and evolve into massive galaxies. With our proposed infrared imaging method, (1) multiple AGNs with the smallest separation of 0.15” can be resolved (as compared to >0.5” achieved with X-ray observations), and (2) buried AGNs at the fainter secondary nuclei are detectable, which is crucial to study dual AGNs (infrared spectroscopy is, in most cases, sensitive only to the brightest AGNs in the primary merging nuclei).

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