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The relationship between galaxy size and environment has remained enigmatic, with over a decade of conflicting results. We present one of the first comprehensive studies of the variation of galaxy radius with environment beyond the local Universe and demonstrate that large-scale environmental density is correlated with galaxy radius independent of stellar mass and galaxy morphology. We confirm with >5 σ confidence that galaxies in denser environments are up to ∼25% larger than their equally massive counterparts with similar morphology in less dense regions of the Universe. We achieve this result by correlating projected two-dimensional densities over ∼360 deg ^2 with the structural parameters of ∼3 million Hyper Suprime-Cam galaxies at 0.3 ≤ z < 0.7 with $\mathrm{log}M/{M}_{\odot }\geqslant 8.9$ . Compared to most previous studies, this sample is ∼100–10,000 times larger and goes ∼1 dex deeper in mass completeness. We demonstrate that past conflicting results have been driven by small sample sizes and a lack of robust measurement uncertainties. We verify the presence of the above correlation separately for disk-dominated, bulge-dominated, star-forming, and quiescent subpopulations. We find the strength of the correlation to be dependent on redshift, stellar mass, and morphology. The correlation is strongest at lower redshifts and systematically weakens or disappears beyond z ≥ 0.5. At z ≥ 0.5, more massive galaxies still display a statistically significant correlation. Although some existing theoretical frameworks can be selectively invoked to explain some of the observed correlations, our work demonstrates the need for more comprehensive theoretical investigations of the correlation between galaxy size and environment.

We present a catalog of the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) continuum properties of 98 nearby ( z < 0.05) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) selected from the 70 month Swift/BAT hard-X-ray catalog that have precisely determined X-ray spectral properties and subarcsecond-resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 6 (211–275 GHz) observations as of 2021 April. Due to the hard-X-ray (>10 keV) selection, the sample is nearly unbiased for obscured systems at least up to Compton-thick-level obscuration, and provides the largest number of AGNs with high-physical-resolution mm-wave data (≲100–200 pc). Our catalog reports emission peak coordinates, spectral indices, and peak fluxes and luminosities at 1.3 mm (230 GHz). Additionally, high-resolution mm-wave images are provided. Using the images and creating radial surface brightness profiles of mm-wave emission, we identify emission extending from the central sources and isolated blob-like emission. Flags indicating the presence of these emission features are tabulated. Among 90 AGNs with significant detections of nuclear emission, 37 AGNs (≈41%) appear to have both or one of extended or blob-like components. We, in particular, investigate AGNs that show well-resolved mm-wave components and find that these seem to have a variety of origins (i.e., a jet, radio lobes, a secondary AGN, stellar clusters, a narrow-line region, galaxy disk, active star formation regions, or AGN-driven outflows), and some components have currently unclear origins.

We present two independent measurements of stellar velocity dispersions ( σ _⋆ ) from the Ca ii H+K λ 3969, 3934 and Mg i b λ 5183, 5172, 5167 region (3880–5550 Å) and the calcium triplet region (8350–8750 Å) for 173 hard X-ray-selected Type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs; z ≤ 0.08) from the 105 month Swift-BAT catalog. We construct one of the largest samples of local Type 1 AGNs that have both single-epoch virial black hole mass ( M _BH ) estimates and σ _⋆ measurements obtained from high spectral resolution data, allowing us to test the usage of such methods for supermassive black hole studies. We find that the two independent σ _⋆ measurements are highly consistent with each other, with an average offset of only 0.002 ± 0.001 dex. Comparing M _BH estimates based on broad emission lines and stellar velocity dispersion measurements, we find that the former is systematically lower by ≈0.12 dex. Consequently, Eddington ratios estimated through broad-line M _BH determinations are similarly biased (but in the opposite way). We argue that the discrepancy is driven by extinction in the broad-line region. We also find an anticorrelation between the offset from the M _BH – σ _⋆ relation and the Eddington ratio. Our sample of Type 1 AGNs shows a shallower M _BH – σ _⋆ relation (with a power-law exponent of ≈3.5) compared with that of inactive galaxies (with a power-law exponent of ≈4.5), confirming earlier results obtained from smaller samples.

We use the Galaxy Morphology Posterior Estimation Network (GaMPEN) to estimate morphological parameters and associated uncertainties for ∼8 million galaxies in the Hyper Suprime-Cam Wide survey with z ≤ 0.75 and m ≤ 23. GaMPEN is a machine-learning framework that estimates Bayesian posteriors for a galaxy’s bulge-to-total light ratio ( L _B / L _T ), effective radius ( R _e ), and flux ( F ). By first training on simulations of galaxies and then applying transfer learning using real data, we trained GaMPEN with

We present a machine-learning framework to accurately characterize the morphologies of active galactic nucleus (AGN) host galaxies within z < 1. We first use PSFGAN to decouple host galaxy light from the central point source, then we invoke the Galaxy Morphology Network (G a M or N et ) to estimate whether the host galaxy is disk-dominated, bulge-dominated, or indeterminate. Using optical images from five bands of the HSC Wide Survey, we build models independently in three redshift bins: low (0 < z < 0.25), mid (0.25 < z < 0.5), and high (0.5 < z < 1.0). By first training on a large number of simulated galaxies, then fine-tuning using far fewer classified real galaxies, our framework predicts the actual morphology for ∼60%–70% of the host galaxies from test sets, with a classification precision of ∼80%–95%, depending on the redshift bin. Specifically, our models achieve a disk precision of 96%/82%/79% and bulge precision of 90%/90%/80% (for the three redshift bins) at thresholds corresponding to indeterminate fractions of 30%/43%/42%. The classification precision of our models has a noticeable dependency on host galaxy radius and magnitude. No strong dependency is observed on contrast ratio. Comparing classifications of real AGNs, our models agree well with traditional 2D fitting with GALFIT. The PSFGAN+G a M or N et framework does not depend on the choice of fitting functions or galaxy-related input parameters, runs orders of magnitude faster than GALFIT, and is easily generalizable via transfer learning, making it an ideal tool for studying AGN host galaxy morphology in forthcoming large imaging surveys.

The COSMOS field has been extensively observed by most major telescopes, including Chandra, HST, and Subaru. HST imaging boasts very high spatial resolution and is used extensively in morphological studies of distant galaxies. Subaru provides lower spatial resolution imaging than HST but a substantially wider field of view with greater sensitivity. Both telescopes provide near-infrared imaging of COSMOS. Successful morphological fitting of Subaru data would allow us to measure morphologies of over 10 ^4 known active galactic nucleus (AGN) hosts, accessible through Subaru wide-field surveys, currently not covered by HST. The morphological parameters indicate the types of galaxies that host AGNs. For 4016 AGNs between 0.03 < z < 6.5, we study the morphology of their galaxy hosts using GALFIT, fitting components representing the AGN and host galaxy simultaneously using the i -band imaging from both HST and Subaru. Comparing the fits for the differing telescope spatial resolutions and image signal-to-noise ratios, we identify parameter regimes for which there is strong disagreement between distributions of fitted parameters for HST and Subaru. In particular, the Sérsic index values strongly disagree between the two sets of data, including sources at lower redshifts. In contrast, the measured magnitude and radius parameters show reasonable agreement. Additionally, large variations in the Sérsic index have little effect on the ${\chi }_{\nu }^{2}$ of each fit, whereas variations in other parameters have a more significant effect. These results indicate that the Sérsic index distributions of high-redshift galaxies that host AGNs imaged at ground-based spatial resolution are not reliable indicators of galaxy type and should be interpreted with caution.

We present the active galactic nucleus (AGN) catalog and optical spectroscopy for the second data release of the Swift BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS DR2). With this DR2 release we provide 1449 optical spectra, of which 1182 are released for the first time, for the 858 hard-X-ray-selected AGNs in the Swift BAT 70-month sample. The majority of the spectra (801/1449, 55%) are newly obtained from Very Large Telescope (VLT)/X-shooter or Palomar/Doublespec. Many of the spectra have both higher resolution ( R > 2500, N ∼ 450) and/or very wide wavelength coverage (3200–10000 Å, N ∼ 600) that are important for a variety of AGN and host galaxy studies. We include newly revised AGN counterparts for the full sample and review important issues for population studies, with 47 AGN redshifts determined for the first time and 790 black hole mass and accretion rate estimates. This release is spectroscopically complete for all AGNs (100%, 858/858), with 99.8% having redshift measurements (857/858) and 96% completion in black hole mass estimates of unbeamed AGNs (722/752). This AGN sample represents a unique census of the brightest hard-X-ray-selected AGNs in the sky, spanning many orders of magnitude in Eddington ratio ( L / L _Edd = 10 ^−5 –100), black hole mass ( M _BH = 10 ^5 –10 ^10 M _⊙ ), and AGN bolometric luminosity ( L _bol = 10 ^40 –10 ^47 erg s ^−1 ).

We present the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) Near-infrared Data Release 2 (DR2), a study of 168 nearby ( $\bar{z}=0.04$ , z < 0.6) active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the all-sky Swift Burst Array Telescope X-ray survey observed with the Very Large Telescope (VLT)/X-shooter in the near-infrared (NIR; 0.8–2.4 μ m). We find that 49/109 (45%) Seyfert 2 and 35/58 (60%) Seyfert 1 galaxies observed with VLT/X-shooter show at least one NIR high-ionization coronal line (CL; ionization potential χ > 100 eV). Comparing the emission of the [Si vi ] λ 1.9640 CL with the X-ray emission for the DR2 AGN, we find a significantly tighter correlation, with a lower scatter (0.37 dex) than that for the optical [O iii ] λ 5007 line (0.71 dex). We do not find any correlation between CL emission and the X-ray photon index Γ. We find a clear trend of line blueshifts with increasing ionization potential in several CLs, such as [Si vi ] λ 1.9640, [Si x ] λ 1.4300, [S viii ] λ 0.9915, and [S ix ] λ 1.2520, indicating the radial structure of the CL region. Finally, we find a strong underestimation bias in black hole mass measurements of Sy 1.9 using broad H α due to the presence of significant dust obscuration. In contrast, the broad Pa α and Pa β emission lines are in agreement with the M – σ relation. Based on the combined DR1 and DR2 X-shooter sample, the NIR BASS sample now comprises 266 AGN with rest-frame NIR spectroscopic observations, the largest set assembled to date.

Virial black hole (BH) mass ( M _BH ) determination directly involves knowing the broad-line region (BLR) clouds’ velocity distribution, their distance from the central supermassive BH ( R _BLR ), and the virial factor ( f ). Understanding whether biases arise in M _BH estimation with increasing obscuration is possible only by studying a large ( N > 100) statistical sample of obscuration-unbiased (hard) X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the rest-frame near-infrared (0.8–2.5 μ m) since it penetrates deeper into the BLR than the optical. We present a detailed analysis of 65 local Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) selected Seyfert galaxies observed with Magellan/FIRE. Adding these to the near-infrared BAT AGN spectroscopic survey database, we study a total of 314 unique near-infrared spectra. While the FWHMs of H α and near-infrared broad lines (He i , Pa β , Pa α ) remain unbiased to either BLR extinction or X-ray obscuration, the H α broad-line luminosity is suppressed when N _H ≳ 10 ^21 cm ^−2 , systematically underestimating M _BH by 0.23–0.46 dex. Near-infrared line luminosities should be preferred to H α until N _H < 10 ^22 cm ^−2 , while at higher obscuration a less-biased R _BLR proxy should be adopted. We estimate f for Seyfert 1 and 2 using two obscuration-unbiased M _BH measurements, i.e., the stellar velocity dispersion and a BH mass prescription based on near-infrared and X-ray, and find that the virial factors do not depend on the redshift or obscuration, but some broad lines show a mild anticorrelation with M _BH . Our results show the critical impact obscuration can have on BLR characterization and the importance of the near-infrared and X-rays for a less-biased view of the BLR.

We present new central stellar velocity dispersions for 484 Sy 1.9 and Sy 2 from the second data release of the Swift/BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS DR2). This constitutes the largest study of velocity dispersion measurements in X-ray-selected obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) with 956 independent measurements of the Ca ii H and K λ 3969, 3934 and Mg I λ 5175 region (3880–5550 Å) and the calcium triplet region (8350–8730 Å) from 642 spectra mainly from VLT/X-Shooter or Palomar/DoubleSpec. Our sample spans velocity dispersions of 40–360 km s ^1 , corresponding to 4–5 orders of magnitude in black hole mass ( M _BH = 10 ^5.5−9.6 M _⊙ ), bolometric luminosity ( L _bol ∼ 10 ^42–46 erg s ^−1 ), and Eddington ratio ( L / L _Edd ∼ 10 ^−5 to 2). For 281 AGN, our data and analysis provide the first published central velocity dispersions, including six AGN with low-mass black holes ( M _BH = 10 ^5.5−6.5 M _⊙ ), discovered thanks to high spectral resolution observations ( σ _inst ∼ 25 km s ^−1 ). The survey represents a significant advance with a nearly complete census of velocity dispersions of hard X-ray–selected obscured AGN with measurements for 99% of nearby AGN ( z < 0.1) outside the Galactic plane (∣ b ∣ > 10°). The BASS AGN have much higher velocity dispersions than the more numerous optically selected narrow-line AGN (i.e., ∼150 versus ∼100 km s ^−1 ) but are not biased toward the highest velocity dispersions of massive ellipticals (i.e., >250 km s ^−1 ). Despite sufficient spectral resolution to resolve the velocity dispersions associated with the bulges of small black holes (∼10 ^4–5 M _⊙ ), we do not find a significant population of super-Eddington AGN. Using estimates of the black hole sphere of influence from velocity dispersion, direct stellar and gas black hole mass measurements could be obtained with existing facilities for more than ∼100 BASS AGN.

We present measurements of broad emission lines and virial estimates of supermassive black hole masses ( M _BH ) for a large sample of ultrahard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) as part of the second data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR2). Our catalog includes M _BH estimates for a total of 689 AGNs, determined from the H α , H β , Mg ii λ 2798, and/or C iv λ 1549 broad emission lines. The core sample includes a total of 512 AGNs drawn from the 70 month Swift/BAT all-sky catalog. We also provide measurements for 177 additional AGNs that are drawn from deeper Swift/BAT survey data. We study the links between M _BH estimates and line-of-sight obscuration measured from X-ray spectral analysis. We find that broad H α emission lines in obscured AGNs ( $\mathrm{log}({N}_{{\rm{H}}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2})\gt 22.0$ ) are on average a factor of ${8.0}_{-2.4}^{+4.1}$ weaker relative to ultrahard X-ray emission and about ${35}_{-12}^{\,+7}$ % narrower than those in unobscured sources (i.e., $\mathrm{log}({N}_{{\rm{H}}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2})\lt 21.5$ ). This indicates that the innermost part of the broad-line region is preferentially absorbed. Consequently, current single-epoch M _BH prescriptions result in severely underestimated (>1 dex) masses for Type 1.9 sources (AGNs with broad H α but no broad H β ) and/or sources with $\mathrm{log}({N}_{{\rm{H}}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2})\gtrsim 22.0$ . We provide simple multiplicative corrections for the observed luminosity and width of the broad H α component ( L [bH α ] and FWHM[bH α ]) in such sources to account for this effect and to (partially) remedy M _BH estimates for Type 1.9 objects. As a key ingredient of BASS/DR2, our work provides the community with the data needed to further study powerful AGNs in the low-redshift universe.

We determine the low-redshift X-ray luminosity function, active black hole mass function (BHMF), and Eddington ratio distribution function (ERDF) for both unobscured (Type 1) and obscured (Type 2) active galactic nuclei (AGNs), using the unprecedented spectroscopic completeness of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) data release 2. In addition to a straightforward 1/ V _max approach, we also compute the intrinsic distributions, accounting for sample truncation by employing a forward-modeling approach to recover the observed BHMF and ERDF. As previous BHMFs and ERDFs have been robustly determined only for samples of bright, broad-line (Type 1) AGNs and/or quasars, ours are the first directly observationally constrained BHMF and ERDF of Type 2 AGNs. We find that after accounting for all observational biases, the intrinsic ERDF of Type 2 AGNs is significantly more skewed toward lower Eddington ratios than the intrinsic ERDF of Type 1 AGNs. This result supports the radiation-regulated unification scenario, in which radiation pressure dictates the geometry of the dusty obscuring structure around an AGN. Calculating the ERDFs in two separate mass bins, we verify that the derived shape is consistent, validating the assumption that the ERDF (shape) is mass-independent. We report the local AGN duty cycle as a function of mass and Eddington ratio, by comparing the BASS active BHMF with the local mass function for all supermassive black holes. We also present the $\mathrm{log}N-\mathrm{log}S$ of the Swift/BAT 70 month sources.

We present the second catalog and data release of optical spectral line measurements and active galactic nucleus (AGN) demographics of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey, which focuses on the Swift-BAT hard X-ray detected AGNs. We use spectra from dedicated campaigns and publicly available archives to investigate spectral properties of most of the AGNs listed in the 70 month Swift-BAT all-sky catalog; specifically, 743 of the 746 unbeamed and unlensed AGNs (99.6%). We find a good correspondence between the optical emission line widths and the hydrogen column density distributions using the X-ray spectra, with a clear dichotomy of AGN types for N _H = 10 ^22 cm ^−2 . Based on optical emission-line diagnostics, we show that 48%–75% of BAT AGNs are classified as Seyfert, depending on the choice of emission lines used in the diagnostics. The fraction of objects with upper limits on line emission varies from 6% to 20%. Roughly 4% of the BAT AGNs have lines too weak to be placed on the most commonly used diagnostic diagram, [O iii ] λ 5007/H β versus [N ii ] λ 6584/H α , despite the high signal-to-noise ratio of their spectra. This value increases to 35% in the [O iii ] λ 5007/[O ii ] λ 3727 diagram, owing to difficulties in line detection. Compared to optically selected narrow-line AGNs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the BAT narrow-line AGNs have a higher rate of reddening/extinction, with H α /H β > 5 (∼36%), indicating that hard X-ray selection more effectively detects obscured AGNs from the underlying AGN population. Finally, we present a subpopulation of AGNs that feature complex broad lines (34%, 250/743) or double-peaked narrow emission lines (2%, 17/743).

The BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) is designed to provide a highly complete census of the key physical parameters of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that power local active galactic nuclei (AGNs) ( z ≲ 0.3), including their bolometric luminosity ( L _bol ), black hole (BH) mass ( M _BH ), accretion rates ( L _bol / L _Edd ), line-of-sight gas obscuration ( N _H ), and the distinctive properties of their host galaxies (e.g., star formation rates, masses, and gas fractions). We present an overview of the second data release of BASS (DR2), an unprecedented spectroscopic AGN survey in spectral range, resolution, and sensitivity, including 1449 optical (∼3200 Å–1 μ m) and 233 near-IR (1–2.5 μ m) spectra for the brightest 858 ultrahard X-ray (14–195 keV) selected AGNs across the entire sky and essentially all levels of obscuration. This release provides a highly complete set of key measurements (emission-line measurements and central velocity dispersions), with 99.9% measured redshifts and 98% BH masses estimated (for unbeamed AGNs outside the Galactic plane). The BASS DR2 AGN sample represents a unique census of nearby powerful AGNs, spanning over 5 orders of magnitude in AGN bolometric luminosity ( L _bol ∼ 10 ^40 –10 ^47 erg s ^−1 ), BH mass ( M _BH ∼ 10 ^5 –10 ^10 M _⊙ ), Eddington ratio ( L _bol / L _Edd ≳ 10 ^−5 ), and obscuration ( N _H ∼ 10 ^20 –10 ^25 cm ^−2 ). The public BASS DR2 sample and measurements can thus be used to answer fundamental questions about SMBH growth and its links to host galaxy evolution and feedback in the local universe, as well as open questions concerning SMBH physics. Here we provide a brief overview of the survey strategy, the key BASS DR2 measurements, data sets and catalogs, and scientific highlights from a series of DR2-based works pursued by the BASS team.