On the Tully–Fisher Relation for Active Galaxies. I. Evidence of Larger Scatter

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Abstract
We present an investigation of the Tully–Fisher (TF) relation solely for galaxies hosting an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Using 22 galaxies with primary, z -independent distances, we find that active galaxies exhibit significantly larger scatter about all TF relations compared to each respective calibration for (largely) inactive galaxies. The larger scatter persists despite removal of the AGN contamination from the photometry of the type 1 AGNs via (1) careful surface brightness decompositions or (2) employing spectral energy distributions to constrain the light contribution of the AGN. These results suggest that the influence of an AGN on its host galaxy’s surface brightness may extend beyond the nucleus. We also calculate the percentage difference between TF and primary distances and find that TF-based distances are biased toward overestimation of the primary distances to active galaxies by anywhere from ∼5% to 10% for the optical/near-infrared and ∼15% for distances predicted from inverting the baryonic TF relation. As TF-based distances (especially the I band) are relied on heavily for analysis and modeling of the local peculiar velocity ( V PEC ) field, we suggest that active galaxies be removed from future V PEC modeling samples.
Funding Information
  • National Science Foundation (AST-2407802)

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