Bibcode
O'Dowd, M.; Urry, C. M.; Scarpa, R.; Pesce, J. E.
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society, 191st AAS Meeting, #103.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 29, p.1373
Advertised on:
12
1997
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Understanding the connection between normally evolving galaxies and
those with extreme nuclear activity, the so-called Active Galactic
Nuclei, is a fundamental problem in the study of both galaxy evolution
and of AGN. From HST images of the 96 BL Lacertae objects observed in
our Cycle 5 and 6 programs, we have determined the absolute magnitudes
and the radial profiles of over half of the host galaxies, taking
advantage of HST's excellent resolution to constrain the profile shapes
very close to the centre. This is a complete sample, chosen from
complete x-ray, radio, and optical samples, and spanning a redshift
range of 0 to 1. Our preliminary results agree with current unified
schemes models - the BL Lacs do tend to reside in giant elliptical
galaxies, and morphological anomalies are common, suggesting recent
interactions in many of our sample. Our preliminary results also suggest
a correlation between nuclear and host galaxy magnitude, a relationship
which has been tentatively claimed for other classes of AGN, but not yet
confirmed. Our current program is to analyse the HST images jointly with
deep ground based data. By combining the superior resolution of HST with
the low surface brightness sensitivity of large ground based telescopes,
we are able to constrain the galaxy morphologies much more tightly. We
present here the current results of this analysis.