Seyfert galaxies that are undergoing merging but appear non-interacting

Abstract

We present new broad-band optical images of some merging Seyfert galaxies that were earlier considered to be non-interacting objects. In our deep images obtained at the Russian 6-m telescope we have detected elongated tidal envelopes belonging to satellites debris with a surface R-band brightness about 25-26.5 mag arcsec-2. These structures are invisible in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) pictures because of their photometric limit. We found that 35 per cent of the sample of isolated galaxies has undergone merging during the last 0.5-1 Gyr. Our results suggest that statistical studies based on popular imaging surveys (SDSS or Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II)) can lead to underestimation of the fraction of minor mergers among galaxies with active nuclei (AGN). This fact impacts on statistics and must be taken into consideration when finding a connection between minor/major merging or interactions and nucleus activity. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.