Broad-line active galactic nuclei in the 6dF Galaxy Survey

ABSTRACT The Six-degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) is a spectroscopic redshift survey of the Southern hemisphere completed in 2006. While it provides 136 304 spectra of mostly low-redshift galaxies, a large and reliable catalogue of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that are selected based on spectral signatures is still lacking. In this work, we present an extensive list of verified broad emission-line AGNs in the 6dFGS sample. We visually confirm the AGN nature of all spectra, and disentangle fibre cross-talk to remove bogus AGNs. The final catalogue contains 2513 unique broad-line AGNs with a median redshift of 0.207, of which 891 are identified for the first time. A flux-limited subsample contains 665 AGNs to a K-band magnitude of 13. This new sample adds to the list of known low-luminosity AGNs in the Southern hemisphere and thus provides a basis for investigations of low-redshift AGNs with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory.