AChandraSnapshot Survey of Infrared‐bright LINERs: A Possible Link Between Star Formation, Active Galactic Nucleus Fueling, and Mass Accretion

We present results from a high resolution X-ray imaging study of nearbyLINERs observed by Chandra. This study complements and extends previous X-raystudies of LINERs, focusing on the under-explored population of nearbydust-enshrouded infrared-bright LINERs. The sample consists of 15 IR-brightLINERs (L_FIR/L_B > 3), with distances that range from 11 to 26 Mpc. Combiningour sample with previous Chandra studies we find that ~ 51% (28/55) of theLINERs display compact hard X-ray cores. The nuclear 2-10 keV luminosities ofthe galaxies in this expanded sample range from ~ 2 X 10^38 ergs s^-1 to ~ 2 X10^44 ergs s^-1. We find an intriguing trend in the Eddington ratio vs. L_FIRand L_FIR/L_B for the AGN-LINERs in the expanded sample that extends over sevenorders of magnitude in L/L_Edd. This correlation may imply a link between blackhole growth, as measured by the Eddington ratio, and the star formation rate(SFR), as measured by the far-IR luminosity and IR-brightness ratio. If thefar-IR luminosity is an indicator of the molecular gas content in our sample ofLINERs, our results may further indicate that the mass accretion rate scaleswith the host galaxy's fuel supply. We discuss the potential implications ofour results in the framework of black hole growth and AGN fueling in lowluminosity AGN. (Abridged)Comment: Accepted for publication by ApJ 14 pages, 13 figure