Simulated AGN: An Example

As a follow-up to my post describing the science behind simulating AGN for classification of their host galaxies, here is an example of one of the 116 galaxies that we used to create the 1740 simulated AGN in the sample.

Each galaxy was made into 15 different simulated AGN using 3 colors and 5 luminosity ratios.

If you’d like to see the full-size version, click on the image.

As some of you have pointed out, the cases where the simulated AGN is as bright as or brighter than the host galaxy do look a little like, well, simulations. But hopefully that doesn’t significantly affect the main science question: how does its presence affect the classification of the underlying galaxy (if at all)?

As Carie mentioned in her recent post on this topic, the results from the classification of these simulated AGN will be posted shortly.