# A Companion Galaxy to the Post-Starburst Quasar UN J1025-0040

## 1 Introduction

Although the relationship between starbursts and nuclear activity remains controversial (see, e.g., Joseph 1999 and Sanders 1999), the two are often found together. Furthermore, there has long been strong circumstantial evidence that QSO activity is often triggered by interactions or mergers (Stockton 1999 and references therein) and it is well established that virtually all of the most luminous starbursts show strong interaction (Sanders & Mirabel 1996); at least some of these also show nuclear activity. Indeed, some objects classified as ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIGs) on the basis of their far-IR flux densities were originally known as QSOs (e.g., 3C 48, Mrk 231, Mrk 1014). Spectroscopy of hosts and companions of these and other objects that show both QSO and ULIG characteristics confirm that they almost universally have dominant post-starburst populations (eg, Boroson & Oke 1984, Stockton, Canalizo & Close 1998, Canalizo & Stockton 2000a, 2000b).

One of the most spectacular examples of such an object is UN J1025$``$0040, recently identified by Brotherton et al. (1999; hereafter Paper I), originally targeted as a quasar candidate by the 2dF survey<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1http://msowww.anu.edu.au/$``$rsmith/QSO\_Survey/qso\_surv.html (Smith et al. 1996). UN J1025$``$0040 is a quasar where, at least in the optical, the flux contribution from a recent massive starburst is closely balanced with that from the AGN, leading to an unusual composite spectrum. Brotherton et al. estimate an age of 400 Myr for the post-starburst population. They emphasize the possibility that UN J1025$``$0040 may be a transitional object between ULIGs and the classical QSO population.

In the deep $`K_S`$ image shown as Fig. 2 in Paper I, there is a faint object 4$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2 south-southwest of the quasar, having an essentially stellar profile. However, the host galaxy of the quasar is elongated in roughly the same direction, so, as suggested in Paper I, this object might be a companion galaxy, rather than simply an intervening star. Here we present spectroscopic and imaging observations that confirm this suggestion.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

Spectroscopic observations of UN J1025$``$0040 and its companion were carried out on UT 1999 April 22 with the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (LRIS; Oke et al. 1995) on the Keck II telescope. The slit was 1″ wide and oriented at a PA of 23° to pass through both the quasar and the companion; the grating had 400 grooves mm<sup>-1</sup> and was blazed at 8500 Å, giving a dispersion of 1.86 Å pixel<sup>-1</sup>, and a projected slit width of $`8.5`$ Å. The observations were taken close to the meridian, so the slit position angle was always within 30° of the parallactic angle, and the zenith angle was never more than 21°. There was no order-separating filter in the beam, so we use only the portions of the spectrum uncontaminated by second order overlap. The total integration time was 2160 s.

The spectroscopic reduction followed standard procedures. After subtracting bias and dividing by a normalized halogen lamp flat-field frame, we rectified the individual frames and placed them on a wavelength scale by a transformation to match measurements of the spectrum of a Hg-Ne-Kr lamp. We then traced the spectra of the quasar and the companion using routines in the IRAF apextract package. We calibrated the spectra by observations of the spectrophotometric standard stars Feige 34 and Wolf 1346 (Massey et al. 1988), and averaged the one-dimensional traces from the three frames with the IRAF task scombine.

We obtained $`K_S`$ images of UN J1025$``$0040 using the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRC; Matthews and Soifer 1994) at the Keck I telescope on UT 1998 April 18. The details of the observations and data reduction are described in Paper I.

We obtained $`H`$-band images of UN J1025$``$0040 with the University of Hawaii (UH) 2.2 m telescope on UT 1999 April 3. We used the $`1024\times 1024`$ QUIRC (HgCdTe) infrared camera (Hodapp et al. 1996) at f/31, which gives an image scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$0608 pixel<sup>-1</sup>. The sky conditions were photometric and the seeing was $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$3. We used four UKIRT faint standard stars (Casali & Hawarden 1992) for flux calibration. The total integration time was 3600 s.

We also obtained $`R`$ and $`I`$-band images with the UH 2.2 m telescope on UT 1999 April 6–7 and UT 1999 May 5. The April images were obtained through thin cirrus with $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$9 seeing and were calibrated to the May images, for which conditions were photometric with $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$7 seeing. All images were obtained with a Tektronix $`2048\times 2048`$ CCD with an image scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$22 pixel<sup>-1</sup> and were calibrated by 5 standard stars in Selected Area 101 (Landolt 1992). The total exposures on the UN J1025$``$0040 field were 4500 s in $`R`$ and 9000 s in $`I`$.

## 3 Results

Figure 1 shows the spectra of UN J1025$``$0040 and the companion object, which clearly is a galaxy associated with the quasar. The redshift of the starburst in the host galaxy, as measured from stellar absorption lines, is $`z_{host}=0.6344\pm 0.0001`$. The redshift of the companion galaxy $`z_{comp}=0.6341\pm 0.0001`$ was measured from the \[O II\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission line.

We compared the spectrum of the companion to Bruzual & Charlot (1996) isochrone synthesis models. The lighter line in Fig. 1 is an 800 Myr old instantaneous burst, Scalo (1986) initial mass function, solar metallicity model, which gives a reasonable fit to the data. Note that, in spite of the rather noisy spectrum, the absorption features in the model are fit well by the observed spectrum. The agreement of the absorption features and overall shape of the continuum in the model with the observed spectrum, as well as the presence of the \[Ne III\] emission line at $`\lambda `$3869, provide further evidence that the galaxy is at redshift $`z=0.6341`$.

The images of UN J1025$``$0040 in $`R`$, $`I`$, and $`H`$ bands (Fig. 2) show the same basic morphology as the $`K_s`$ image shown in Fig. 2 of Paper I. In general, the images of the host galaxy show an elongation towards the companion, and possibly a hint of a bridge between the two objects. Our 2-D spectra (Fig. 3) show faint and clumpy \[O II\] $`\lambda `$3727 emission between the companion and the host.

Table 1 gives the photometry of UN J1025$``$0040 and its companion. Figure 4 shows the SED of the companion in the rest frame, with the 800 Myr model superposed on the photometry points. Even though this model was chosen solely on the basis of its fit to the spectroscopy at $`\lambda _o<4500`$ Å, it is in remarkable agreement with the photometry of the object. The fact that the two IR points are well fit by the model indicates that there is little or no dust.

We experimented with adding older stellar components, allowing both ages and relative contributions to vary, but we were not able to obtain any better fit to both the spectrum and the SED. Therefore, at this level, we find no evidence for a significant older stellar component in the companion galaxy.

## 4 Discussion

With our confirmation that the object south-southwest of UN J1025$``$0040 is a companion galaxy and the evidence that the object is physically related to the quasar, this system joins other examples for which it is plausible that both the quasar activity and the starburst may have been triggered by an interaction. From the $`I`$-band magnitude for the companion given in Table 1, we estimate an absolute magnitude $`M_B=18.3`$ ($`H_0=75`$, $`q_0=0`$), so the companion is similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud in luminosity, but more compact ($``$ 1.9 kpc).

We find very different ages for post-starburst populations in the host galaxy (400 Myr) and the companion galaxy (800 Myr). These ages, of course, are somewhat uncertain. Because of contamination from the quasar, and the fact that the SED of the quasar itself remains unknown, it is difficult to model the stellar population with high accuracy. The spectrum of the companion, on the other hand, is too noisy for detailed modeling. However, the contrast between the strong Balmer lines and the Balmer discontinuity in the host, and the 4000 Å break in the companion, show clearly that the post-starburst ages of these objects cannot be the same and, in fact, must differ by a few $`\times 10^8`$ years. High-spatial-resolution spectroscopy could separate the spectrum of the quasar nucleus from that of the starburst and allow a more precise determination of the age of the starburst.

It is possible that the starburst in the companion may have been triggered during a previous passage, while the corresponding starburst in the host galaxy, if present, may be masked by the more recent starburst. This suggestion is appealing because the orbital period of the pair should be of the order of a few $`\times 10^8`$ years, while it is difficult to imagine internal galactic processes having similar time scales which could cause massive starbursts; and it is equally difficult to imagine that these two starbursts are completely unrelated. An orbital origin for the starbursts also fits well with the episodic star formation at times of close passage seen in the merger models of Mihos & Hernquist (1996). At this stage, however, attributing the age difference to the orbital period of UN J1025$``$0040 and its companion can only be speculation. It could be, for example, that the recent starburst in the host galaxy is due to the merger of a second companion and is unrelated to the one we can see; or the stellar populations in the host galaxy and the companion might actually be the same age, if the initial mass function in the companion had a sharp cutoff at about 2 solar masses.

Nevertheless, UN J1025$``$0040 is a key object for our attempts to understand the starburst—AGN connection. It is the only object for which we know that there have been recent major starbursts in both a QSO host galaxy and its companion, and for which we can compare the starburst ages of each. It is the clearest example of a “transition” object between a starburst galaxy and a classical QSO. The most important task now is to determine what kind of transition is relevant to such objects: is it an evolutionary transition, in the sense that the objects progress from starburst to QSO (e.g., Sanders et al. 1988); or is it simply an example of the range of properties such objects can have due to the range of physical conditions under which they are produced? The answer to this question depends on the relative times at which the starburst and the QSO activity are initiated and their relative luminosities as they age (Stockton 1999). The largest uncertainty remains our lack of knowledge of the luminosity history and lifetimes of QSOs. It is in this area that close studies of objects like UN J1025$``$0040 may be helpful. If we can assume (or, better, demonstrate) that the QSO activity is triggered roughly simultaneously with the peak of the starburst, then we can conclude that the QSO lifetime (either continuous or episodic) can be as long as $`4\times 10^8`$ years. If the QSO luminosity were roughly constant over this period, then at some earlier time, the starburst would have swamped the QSO flux, quite aside from any effect of dust. For example, when the starburst was $`50`$ Myr old, it would have been $`2.5`$ times more luminous over most of the optical, rising rapidly to $`6.5`$ times more luminous between 4000 Å and 3000 Å in the rest frame. It would have dominated the QSO emission at all wavelengths from at least the near-IR to close to the Lyman limit, and the QSO would have been detectable in the optical spectrum only from small peaks at the positions of the strongest emission lines.

This scenario would tend to support the evolutionary view of transition objects like UN J1025$``$0040 and 3C 48 (Canalizo & Stockton 2000a), but it depends on assumptions about the initiation and timescale of QSO activity. These assumptions can only be checked by examining post-starburst ages and nuclear activity in a sample of objects, spanning a range of ages.

This research was partially supported by NSF under grant AST95-29078. Data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. This research has been supported in part by NSF under grant AST95-29078, and in part performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48.