The Large-scale Environments of Low-luminosity AGNs at $3.9 < z < 6$ and Implications for Their Host Dark Matter Halos from a Complete NIRCam Grism Redshift Survey

Xiaojing Lin; Xiaohui Fan; Fengwu Sun; Junyu Zhang; Eiichi Egami; Jakob M. Helton; Feige Wang; Haowen Zhang; Andrew J. Bunker; Zheng Cai; Zhiyuan Ji; Xiangyu Jin; Roberto Maiolino; Maria Anne Pudoka; Pierluigi Rinaldi; Brant Robertson; Sandro Tacchella; Wei Leong Tee; Yang Sun; Christopher N. A. Willmer; Chris Willott; Yongda Zhu

Paper

The Large-scale Environments of Low-luminosity AGNs at $3.9 < z < 6$ and Implications for Their Host Dark Matter Halos from a Complete NIRCam Grism Redshift Survey

Abstract

We study the large-scale environments and clustering properties of 28 low-luminosity AGNs at

in the GOODS-N field. Our sample, identified from the JWST NIRCam Imaging and WFSS data in CONGRESS and FRESCO surveys with either broad H

emission lines or V-shape continua, are compared to 782 H

emitters (HAEs) selected from the same data. These AGNs are located in diverse large-scale environments and do not preferentially reside in denser environments compared to HAEs. Their overdensity field,

, averaged over (15

cMpc)

, ranges from

to 10.56, and shows no clear correlation with broad-line luminosity, black hole (BH) masses, or the AGN fraction. It suggests that

cMpc structures do not significantly influence BH growth. We measure the two-point cross-correlation function of AGNs with HAEs, finding a comparable amplitude to that of the HAE auto-correlation. This indicates similar bias parameters and host dark matter halo masses for AGNs and HAEs. The correlation length of field AGNs is 4.26

cMpc, and 7.66

cMpc at

and

, respectively. We infer a median host dark matter halo mass of

and host stellar masses of

by comparing with the UniverseMachine simulation. Our clustering analysis suggests that low-luminosity AGNs at high redshift reside in normal star-forming galaxies with overmassive BHs. They represent an intrinsically distinct population from luminous quasars and could be a common phase in galaxy evolution.