The environmental dependence of the stellar mass of active galactic nucleus host galaxies and dependence of the clustering properties of active galactic nucleus host galaxies on the stellar mass

Abstract

We used two volume-limited active galactic nucleus (AGN) host galaxy samples constructed by Deng & Wen (2020, RMxAA, 56, 87), and explored the environmental dependence of the stellar mass of AGN host galaxies. In the luminous volume-limited AGN host galaxy sample, the stellar mass of AGN host galaxies apparently depends on local environments: high mass AGN host galaxies exist preferentially in the dense regions of the universe, while low mass AGN host galaxies are located preferentially in low density regions. But in the faint volume-limited AGN host galaxy sample, this dependence is fairly weak. We also examined the dependence of the clustering properties of AGN host galaxies on the stellar mass by cluster analysis, and found that in the luminous volume-limited AGN host galaxy sample, low mass AGN host galaxies preferentially form isolated galaxies, close pairs, and small groups, while high mass AGN host galaxies preferentially inhabit the dense groups and clusters. A substantial dependence of the clustering properties of AGN host galaxies on the stellar mass is also observed in the faint volume-limited AGN host galaxy sample, which is inconsistent with the environmental dependence of the stellar mass of AGN host galaxies in the faint volume-limited AGN host galaxy sample. This is likely due to the galaxy number of the faint volume-limited AGN host galaxy sample being too small to ensure an ideal statistical analysis.