Red bulgeless galaxies in SDSS DR7. Are there any AGN hosts?

Abstract

With the main goal of finding bulgeless galaxies harbouring supermassive black holes and showing, at most, just residual star formation activity, we have selected a sample of massive bulgeless red sequence galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7), based on the New York University Value-Added Galaxy Catalogue. Multiwavelength data were retrieved using European Virtual Observatory (EURO-VO) tools, and the objects are characterized in terms of degree of star formation and the presence of an AGN. We have found seven objects that are quenched massive galaxies, have no prominent bulge and show signs of extra activity in their nuclei, five of them being central in their halo. These objects are rather robust candidates for rare systems that, though devoid of a significant bulge, harbour a supermassive black hole with an activity level likely capable of having halted the star formation through feedback.