AGN pairs from SDSS-DR7. I.

AGN pairs, in which the central SMBHs of a galaxy merger are both active, are expected to be common from such events. We conduct a systematic study of 1286 AGN pairs at \bar{z}~0.1 with line-of-sight velocity offsets {Delta}v<600km/s and projected separations r_p_<100h^-1^_70_kpc, selected from the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, Cat.

II/294). This AGN pair sample was drawn from 138070 AGNs optically identified based on diagnostic emission line ratios and/or line widths. The fraction of AGN pairs with 5h^-1^_70_kpc<~r_p_<100h^-1^_70_kpc among all spectroscopically selected AGNs at 0.02<z<0.16 is 3.6% after correcting for SDSS spectroscopic incompleteness; ~30% of these pairs show morphological tidal features in their SDSS images, and the fraction becomes >~80% for pairs with the brightest nuclei.