# Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

From the initial realization that Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (hereafter ULIRGs) represent a significant class of the highest luminosity objects in the local universe (Soifer et al., 1987; Sanders et al., 1988), a central question has been what powers this luminosity. Various studies have attempted to address this question by probing the centers of these highly dust enshrouded systems at wavelengths where the opacity of dust is vastly reduced from that found at visible wavelengths, ranging from X-ray (Rieke, 1988; Nakagawa et al., 1999) to near-infrared (Carico et al., 1990; Veilleux et al., 1999) to mid-infrared (Genzel et al., 1998; Soifer et al., 1999), as well as to radio wavelengths (Smith, Lonsdale, & Lonsdale, 1998). These studies have generally found that direct detection of AGN (Active Galactic Nucleus) properties in the nuclei of these systems is rare.

In this letter we summarize the results of a near-infrared spectroscopic survey of 33 bright, nearby ULIRGs undertaken for the purpose of identifying sources where the effects of dust might be hiding the presence of an AGN in the visible spectra of ULIRGs. This is a natural explanation of the paucity of such spectra, given that the ULIRGs are known to have extremely gas and dust rich nuclear regions (Sanders et al., 1988). The reduced extinction in the near-infrared as compared to the visible (i.e. $`A_{Pa\alpha }0.1A_V`$, Rieke & Lebofsky, 1985) enables extremely sensitive searches for characteristics of AGN hidden by large columns of dust. This survey concentrates on searching for a high velocity component to the strong Pa$`\alpha `$ line, as well as the presence of the very high excitation \[Si VI\] line. The detailed results of this study will be presented elsewhere (Murphy et al., 2000).

## 2 The Sample

The complete sample of 33 ULIRGs for this spectroscopic study is a subset of the sample of Strauss et al. (1990, 1992), which is a complete sample of galaxies selected to have $`S_\nu >`$1.94 Jy at 60$`\mu `$m and an infrared luminosity of $`10^{12}L_{}`$. The selection criteria for the present sample additionally require a declination $`\delta >35^{}`$, and redshift between $`0.055<z<0.108`$. This last constraint allows observations of both Pa$`\alpha `$ and Br$`\gamma `$ in the 2$`\mu `$m atmospheric window. The list of sample galaxies can be read directly out of Murphy et al. (1996) with the above redshift constraint imposed. Two of the 35 galaxies from this sublist have been removed from the present sample: IRAS 21396$`+`$3623 is actually at a redshift of $`z=0.1493`$, and IRAS 19297$``$0406, at galactic latitude $`b11^{}`$, does not appear to be properly identified as a ULIRG.

## 3 Observations and Data Reduction

Observations were obtained with the Palomar Longslit Infrared Spectrograph (Larkin et al., 1996) on observing runs over the period 1996 January to 1997 December. In all cases the object was observed in at least 2 grating settings, and for about 90% of the objects 3 grating settings were employed. Each grating setting covers $`0.12\mu `$m with a scale of 0.0006 $`\mu `$m pixel<sup>-1</sup>. The slit width of 4 pixels, or 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$67 corresponds to a spectral resolution of $`R\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda 1100`$, corresponding to $``$280 km s<sup>-1</sup>. The grating settings were chosen to cover the Pa$`\alpha `$ line at 1.8751$`\mu `$m, the suite of Br$`\delta `$, H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(3) and \[Si VI\] lines centered at 1.954$`\mu `$m, and if a third setting was used, the H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(1) and Br$`\gamma `$ lines centered at 2.14$`\mu `$m. The slit was generally rotated to coincide with the major axis of the ULIRG, where evident, or such that spectra of a secondary nucleus was simultaneously obtained when possible.

Typically, integration times were 1800 s at each grating setting, with the object alternately displaced along the slit such that sky integrations were obtained simultaneously. Wavelength calibration was provided by a combination of OH airglow lines and arc lamp spectra. Atmospheric transmission is compensated by observing the nearly featureless spectra of G V stars, and the spectrum divided by a Planck curve of appropriate temperature. The Br$`\gamma `$ absorption feature in the G star is removed by interpolation. Other minor absorption features present in the G star calibration spectrum are removed using a template spectrum from Kleinmann & Hall (1986). Spectral extractions, centered on the primary nucleus of each ULIRG, were chosen to match the seeing at the time of observation, typically 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$8–1$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2. Extractions on the secondary nuclei, when applicable, were performed in the same manner. A more detailed description of the observations and data reduction procedures are deferred to Murphy et al. (2000), in which the individual spectra will also be presented.

## 4 Results

The most striking property of the collection of ULIRG spectra is that, with a few notable exceptions, there exists remarkable similarity among the vast majority (31 of 33) of spectra of galaxies in the sample. This similarity prompted us to combine all the similar spectra into a single, representative composite ULIRG spectrum. It is our belief that this composite spectrum provides an accurate representation of the typical ULIRG spectrum.

Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies shows the median of spectra from 31 of the ULIRGs normalized to their continuum level, and shifted in wavelength corresponding to the redshift of Pa$`\alpha `$. The objects selected to be included in the combination were chosen to show no obvious evidence for broad lines or high excitation lines based on inspection of the individual spectra. Combining the spectra facilitates identification of any faint features that might be commonly present but with low signal to noise ratio in individual spectra. An average spectrum was also generated, the features of which are indistinguishable from those in the median spectrum. Specific properties and identifications of the lines in the median spectrum are discussed in Section 4.1.

Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies demonstrates the range of line strengths seen in the ULIRG sample in the form of equivalent widths of the Pa$`\alpha `$ and H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(3) lines. Most of the ULIRGs lie within roughly one bin-width of the median value, as displayed in Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies, though there are a number of outliers with significantly higher equivalent widths than the median value. We do not find any correlation between the Pa$`\alpha `$ and H<sub>2</sub> equivalent widths.

A median spectrum of 13 secondary ULIRG nuclei has also been constructed for the purpose of comparing the properties of primary and secondary nuclei. While two of the secondary nuclei exhibit featureless spectra, the median spectrum shows that secondary nuclei tend to be spectroscopically similar to the primary ULIRG nuclei. In general, all of the spectral features visible in the primary nuclei (i.e. Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies), with the exception of the He I line, are visible in the median spectrum composed of secondary ULIRG nuclei, though with lower equivalent widths.

### 4.1 Median Spectrum Line Properties

#### 4.1.1 Atomic Recombination Lines

As can be seen in Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies, Pa$`\alpha `$ emission dominates the near-infrared spectrum of the typical ULIRG. Other recombination lines of hydrogen, specifically Br$`\gamma `$, Br$`\delta `$, and Br$`ϵ`$ are also readily seen in the median spectrum. The extinction to the line emitting region can be crudely estimated from the ratio of the Pa$`\alpha `$ and Br$`\gamma `$ lines. The reddening derived in this way from the median spectrum is $`A_V=5`$–10 mag. There is some evidence that the extinction is higher in the secondary ULIRG nuclei.

The weak line at 1.869$`\mu `$m are identified with a pair of He I recombination lines at 1.8686$`\mu `$m and 1.8697$`\mu `$m, with a centroid at 1.8689$`\mu `$m. We have found that this line is comparable in strength to the He I line at 2.058$`\mu `$m. Because of the small separation between the Pa$`\alpha `$ line and the He I line, at lower spectral resolution this line might be confused with a blue wing of the Pa$`\alpha `$ line.

#### 4.1.2 Molecular Hydrogen Lines

Vibration-rotation lines of H<sub>2</sub> are also prominent in the median spectrum. The H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 lines S(1), S(3), S(4), and S(5) are clearly present in the median spectrum and the S(2) line is evident at low significance. There is marginal evidence for the H<sub>2</sub> 2–1 S(2) and S(4) lines in the median spectrum, but these are at very low significance. The observed H<sub>2</sub> spectrum is consistent with purely thermal excitation at a temperature of $`T=T_{vib}=T_{rot}`$2500 K. At this temperature, contributions to the spectrum from H<sub>2</sub> 6–4 O(5) and 7–5 O(3) at $`\lambda \lambda `$1.8665, 1.8721, potential contributors to the blue wing of Pa$`\alpha `$ (e.g., Veilleux et al., 1999), are of negligible significance. The appearance of line emission at the position of the 2–1 S(4) line is inconsistent with the apparent weakness of the 2–1 S(2) line, suggesting the presence of \[Fe II\] at 2.0024$`\mu `$m. This possibility is further discussed below.

At a spectral resolution of 280 km s<sup>-1</sup>, the H I lines appear to be spectrally unresolved in the median spectrum of Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies. The H<sub>2</sub> lines, on the other hand, appear to have a broader spectral profile, especially evident near the bases of these lines. Random velocity offsets between the H I and H<sub>2</sub> line emission would indeed tend to broaden the H<sub>2</sub> lines when using Pa$`\alpha `$ as the redshift reference for the combination. However, when the H<sub>2</sub> lines themselves are used as the redshift reference, the H<sub>2</sub> profiles are seemingly unaffected, with no apparent broadening of the Pa$`\alpha `$ profile.

#### 4.1.3 Iron Lines

A faint line appears in the median spectrum at 1.967$`\mu `$m, close to the wavelength of \[Si VI\] at 1.963$`\mu `$m. We do not identify this line with the \[Si VI\] line for two reasons. First, in two objects we directly detect the \[Si VI\] line correctly centered at 1.963$`\mu `$m (see below). In addition, there is a matching line from \[Fe II\] at 1.967$`\mu `$m. Such a feature is consistent with the known strength of \[Fe II\] lines in starburst galaxies of lower luminosity. This identification would imply that the \[Fe II\] 1.644$`\mu `$m and 1.258$`\mu `$m lines should be present at much greater strength in these spectra. While such observations are limited there is evidence, e.g., Veilleux et al. (1997) that such strong Fe lines are common in ULIRGs. The presence of the 1.967$`\mu `$m \[Fe II\] line also supports the existence of the suspected \[Fe II\] line at 2.0024$`\mu `$m, coincident with the H<sub>2</sub> 2–1 S(4) line. The 2.0024$`\mu `$m \[Fe II\] line is expected to be two to three times weaker than the line at 1.967$`\mu `$m, which is consistent with the observed low-level line at 2.003$`\mu `$m being a blend of \[Fe II\] and H<sub>2</sub> lines.

### 4.2 ULIRGs with AGN Properties

Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies shows spectra of the two objects in the sample where evidence of AGN associated spectral features is clearly present in the individual object spectra. While the spectra of these two galaxies have characteristics not found in the median spectrum, these spectra are still quite similar in appearance to the median spectrum of Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies.

The near-infrared spectrum of IRAS 08311$``$2459 ($`z=0.1006`$), presented in Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies, shows a strong, and slightly broad \[Si VI\] line along with the H I recombination lines and H<sub>2</sub> lines. The strength of the \[Si VI\] line is quite unusual for ULIRGs in general, being roughly equal in strength to the H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(3) line. The presence of the \[Si VI\] line directly demonstrates the existence of high energy photons since the ionization potential of Si<sup>4+</sup> is 167 eV. IRAS 08311$``$2459 also shows the suggestion of a broad Pa$`\alpha `$ base with an asymmetric blue wing that is not consistent with being a He I recombination line. This appears to be a high velocity component of the H I line.

The near-infrared spectrum of IRAS 15462$``$0450 ($`z=0.1003`$), presented in Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies, shows a broad component of Pa$`\alpha `$ in addition to the strong narrow component of this line, as well as evidence for the He I line. There is no evidence for the \[Si VI\] line in the spectrum, though the H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(3) line is clearly present.

For comparison, a median quasar spectrum is included in Figure Near-Infrared Spectra of Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies. This spectrum is composed from ten quasars ranging in redshift from $`z=0.089`$–0.182, observed with the same instrument and in the same manner as that described above for the ULIRGs. The median quasar spectrum is dominated by broad Pa$`\alpha `$ emission, though a velocity-broadened blend of Br$`\delta `$, H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(3), and \[Si VI\] can also be discerned. The \[Si VI\] line appears to be comparable in strength to the H<sub>2</sub> 1–0 S(3) line, as is also the case for IRAS 08311$``$2459. A more detailed account of the quasar spectra will accompany the paper describing the individual ULIRG spectra (Murphy et al., 2000).

## 5 Discussion

The most direct result from this work is that the great majority of ULIRGs (31 of 33) show no indication of AGN activity when viewed at 2$`\mu `$m with relatively high spectral resolution and sensitivity. Of the 33 objects observed, 90% have luminosities $`L<2\times 10^{12}L_{}`$ and of these nearly all (29/30) lack spectroscopic evidence for broad line regions or high energy photons. In the 3 objects with $`L_{ir}2\times 10^{12}L_{}`$, one shows spectroscopic evidence of AGN activity. While lacking the numbers to make a statistically significant argument, this fraction is consistent with findings in previous near-infrared spectroscopic surveys, even though our resolution and sensitivity is higher than the previous studies (Veilleux et al., 1997, 1999).

Where evidence for AGN activity is present, it is readily detectable in the individual spectrum, and spectroscopic evidence for the AGN activity is also present in the visible light spectrum of the object. IRAS 15462$``$0450 is classified as a Seyfert 1 system based on its visible spectrum, while our unpublished observations of IRAS 08311$``$2459 show that it has a Seyfert 2 visible spectrum. Lutz, Veilleux, & Genzel (1999) also report that ULIRGs showing infrared signatures of the AGN phenomenon are usually classified as active galaxies based on their visible light spectra. The converse statement—that all ULIRGs showing no evidence for AGN activity in their near-infrared spectra are optically classified as non-active galaxies—seems also to be supported. Of the 16 non-AGN ULIRGs in the present sample with available optical spectroscopic identifications, only one (IRAS 14394$`+`$5332) is characterized as a Seyfert galaxy based on a marginally high \[O III\]/H$`\beta `$ ratio (Kim, Veilleux, & Sanders, 1998). While this galaxy does exhibit a blue wing on the H I and H<sub>2</sub> lines, there is no corresponding emission redward of the unresolved narrow line component. We therefore do not associate this velocity structure with a massive compact central source, but rather with organized gas motion, such as might be found in outflow phenomena.

The median spectrum of the ULIRGs that do not show evidence for AGN activity presents an important new result, i.e. there are not faint broad or high excitation lines present in the spectra that are not detected in the individual spectra. The relative H I and H<sub>2</sub> line strengths in the AGN and median spectra are quite comparable, while the limits on the strength of a broad component of Pa$`\alpha `$ or \[Si VI\] 1.963$`\mu `$m are at least an order of magnitude less in the median spectrum than in the individual sources with AGNs clearly evident. Furthermore, no luminosity dependent spectroscopic trends are seen in the 31 non-AGN ULIRGs when the spectra are divided into subsets and median-combined in separate luminosity bins. In particular, there is no more evidence for low-level broad Pa$`\alpha `$ in the higher luminosity ULIRGs than there is in the lower luminosity sets or in the collection as a whole. These findings can be explained in several ways. Most obviously it could be that there are simply not AGN associated with the ULIRGs where such features are not obvious. This would imply that for $`L_{ir}<2\times 10^{12}L_{}`$, only a very small fraction of ULIRGs are powered by AGNs. Presumably the power source in these cases is star formation in extremely compact star forming regions. Alternatively, if all these sources harbor an AGN it could be that the fraction of sources with visible spectroscopic evidence for AGN activity is a measure of geometric effects, i.e. there are highly attenuating dust tori with $`A_{Pa\alpha }>`$2.5 mag covering \> 90% of the sky from the central source. Other more carefully contrived configurations of dust are also possible.

While we cannot conclusively argue one way or another, the highly sensitive survey we have conducted for dust enshrouded AGN, combined with other such surveys at other wavelength is providing mounting evidence that star formation is powering the vast majority of ULIRGs with $`L_{ir}<2\times 10^{12}L_{}`$.

We thank Michael Strauss for his role in defining the sample of ULIRGs, and for participating in the early stages of the Caltech effort in studying ULIRGs. We also thank Gerry Neugebauer for helpful discussions. Many persons accompanied us on the observing runs to Palomar, most notably Rob Knop and James Larkin, both of whom provided expert tutelage on the use of the spectrograph, and on methods of data reduction. We thank the night assistants at Palomar, Jaun Carasco, Rick Burruss, Skip Staples, and Karl Dunscombe. for their assistance in the observations. T.W.M. is supported by the NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program, and the Lewis Kingsley Foundation. This research is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.