Circumnuclear structure of NICMOS galaxies

If most galaxies harbor a central massive black hole, the main difference is probably in how well it is fueled by its surroundings. We investigate the hypothesis that such a difference can be seen in the detailed circumnuclear morphologies of galaxies using several quantitatively defined features, including bars, isophotal twists, boxy and disky isophotes, and strong nonaxisymmetric features in unsharp-masked images.

These diagnostics are applied to 250 high-resolution images of galaxy centers obtained in the near-infrared with NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope. To guard against the influence of possible biases and selection effects, we have carefully matched samples of Seyfert 1, Seyfert 2, LINER, starburst, and normal galaxies in their basic properties, taking particular care to ensure that each was observed with a similar average scale (10-15pc/pixel).