Low-mass active galaxies from GAMA DR4

Of these, 70 have stellar masses in the dwarf galaxy regime with 10^8^<~M_*_/M_{sun}_<~10^9.5^. We identify the active galaxies by analyzing optical spectra of a parent sample of ~23000 low-mass emission-line galaxies in the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) Survey Data Release 4, and employing four different diagnostics based on narrow emission-line ratios and the detection of high-ionization coronal lines.

We find that 47 of the 388 low-mass active galaxies exhibit broad H{alpha} in their spectra, corresponding to virial BH masses in the range M_BH_~10^5.0-7.7^M_{sun}_ with a median BH mass of <M_BH_>~10^6.2^M_{sun}_. Our sample extends to higher redshifts (z<=0.3; <z>=0.13) than previous samples of AGNs in low-mass/dwarf galaxies based on Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopy, which can be attributed to the spectroscopic limit of GAMA being ~2mag deeper.