TY - JOUR
T1 - JWST Confirms the Nature of CID-42
AU - Li, Junyao
AU - Zhuang, Ming Yang
AU - Shen, Yue
N1 - We thank the referee for a careful reading of the manuscript and very helpful comments that helped to improve the paper. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope obtained from the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-03127. Support for Program numbers JWST-GO-02057 and JWST-AR-03038 was provided through a grant from the STScI under NASA contract NAS5-03127. The JWST data used in this paper can be found in MAST doi:10.17909/5172-2p03.
We thank the referee for a careful reading of the manuscript and very helpful comments that helped to improve the paper. Based on observations with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope obtained from the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-03127. Support for Program numbers JWST-GO-02057 and JWST-AR-03038 was provided through a grant from the STScI under NASA contract NAS5-03127. The JWST data used in this paper can be found in MAST doi: 10.17909/5172-2p03 .
PY - 2024/1/1
Y1 - 2024/1/1
N2 - The galaxy CID-42 (CXOC J100043.1+020637.2) at z = 0.359 has been proposed to contain a promising candidate for a gravitational-wave recoiling supermassive black hole (SMBH), a slingshot SMBH from a triple-SMBH interaction, or a kiloparsec-scale dual active galactic nucleus (AGN). These claims were primarily based on a pair of bright cores separated by ∼0.″5 resolved in optical Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging. Existing HST, Chandra, and ground-based imaging and spectroscopy are unable to confirm either scenario. With improved spatial resolution, depth, and IR wavelength coverage, NIRCam multiband imaging from the COSMOS-Web JWST treasury program well resolved the two cores in CID-42, revealing a significant stellar bulge for both cores (with stellar masses of ∼1010 M ⊙ for both). JWST imaging further revealed that only the SE core contains an unobscured AGN point source, based on both image decomposition and spectral energy distribution fitting. There is no evidence for AGN activity in the NW core based on the current data. These new observations unambiguously rule out the gravitational-wave-recoiling and slingshot-SMBH scenarios and establish CID-42 as a low-redshift merging pair of galaxies, with likely only one active AGN in the system. These results demonstrate the unparalleled capabilities of JWST (even with imaging alone) in studying the galactic-scale environment of merging galaxies and SMBHs.
AB - The galaxy CID-42 (CXOC J100043.1+020637.2) at z = 0.359 has been proposed to contain a promising candidate for a gravitational-wave recoiling supermassive black hole (SMBH), a slingshot SMBH from a triple-SMBH interaction, or a kiloparsec-scale dual active galactic nucleus (AGN). These claims were primarily based on a pair of bright cores separated by ∼0.″5 resolved in optical Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging. Existing HST, Chandra, and ground-based imaging and spectroscopy are unable to confirm either scenario. With improved spatial resolution, depth, and IR wavelength coverage, NIRCam multiband imaging from the COSMOS-Web JWST treasury program well resolved the two cores in CID-42, revealing a significant stellar bulge for both cores (with stellar masses of ∼1010 M ⊙ for both). JWST imaging further revealed that only the SE core contains an unobscured AGN point source, based on both image decomposition and spectral energy distribution fitting. There is no evidence for AGN activity in the NW core based on the current data. These new observations unambiguously rule out the gravitational-wave-recoiling and slingshot-SMBH scenarios and establish CID-42 as a low-redshift merging pair of galaxies, with likely only one active AGN in the system. These results demonstrate the unparalleled capabilities of JWST (even with imaging alone) in studying the galactic-scale environment of merging galaxies and SMBHs.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/ad0e0d
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ad0e0d
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85182580868
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 961
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 19
ER -