%0 Journal Article %T AGN in dwarf galaxies: frequency, triggering processes and the plausibility of AGN feedback %+ Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (IAP) %+ Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation (AIM (UMR_7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112)) %A Kaviraj, Sugata %A Martin, Garreth %A Silk, Joseph %< avec comité de lecture %@ 1745-3933 %J Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters %I Oxford Journals %V 489 %P L12-L16 %8 2019 %D 2019 %Z 1906.10697 %Z 2019MNRAS.489L..12K %R 10.1093/mnrasl/slz102 %K galaxies: active %K galaxies: dwarf %K galaxies: evolution %K Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics] %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]Journal articles %X While active galactic nuclei (AGN) are considered to be key drivers of the evolution of massive galaxies, their potentially significant role in the dwarf-galaxy regime (M* < 109 M) remains largely unexplored. We combine optical and infrared data, from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) and the Wide-field Infrared Explorer, respectively, to explore the properties of ∼800 AGN in dwarfs at low redshift (z < 0.3). Infrared-selected AGN fractions are ∼10-30 per cent in dwarfs, which, for reasonable duty cycles, indicates a high black hole (BH)-occupation fraction. Visual inspection of the deep HSC images indicates that the merger fraction in dwarf AGN (∼6 per cent) shows no excess compared to a control sample of non-AGN, suggesting that the AGN-triggering processes are secular in nature. Energetic arguments indicate that, in both dwarfs and massive galaxies, bolometric AGN luminosities (LAGN) are significantly greater than supernova luminosities (LSN). LAGN/LSN is, in fact, higher in dwarfs, with predictions from simulations suggesting that this ratio only increases with redshift. Together with the potentially high BH-occupation fraction, this suggests that if AGN feedback is an important driver of massive-galaxy evolution, the same is likely to be true in the dwarf regime, contrary to our classical thinking. %G English %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-03746191/document %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-03746191/file/slz102.pdf %L insu-03746191 %U https://insu.hal.science/insu-03746191 %~ CEA %~ INSU %~ CNRS %~ IAP %~ DSV %~ CEA-UPSAY %~ UNIV-PARIS-SACLAY %~ CEA-UPSAY-SACLAY %~ CEA-DRF %~ SORBONNE-UNIVERSITE %~ SORBONNE-UNIV %~ SU-SCIENCES %~ UP-SCIENCES %~ SU-TI %~ ALLIANCE-SU