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Galaxy mergers are likely to play a role in triggering active galactic nuclei(AGN), but the conditions under which this process occurs are poorlyunderstood. In Paper I, we constructed a sample of spatially offset X-ray AGNthat represent galaxy mergers hosting a single AGN. In this paper, we use ouroffset AGN sample to constrain the parameters that affect AGN observability ingalaxy mergers. We also construct dual AGN samples with similar selectionproperties for comparison. We find that the offset AGN fraction shows noevidence for a dependence on AGN luminosity, while the dual AGN fractions showstronger evidence for a positive dependence, suggesting that the merger eventsforming dual AGN are more efficient at instigating accretion onto supermassiveblack holes than those forming offset AGN. We also find that the offset anddual AGN fractions both have a negative dependence on nuclear separation andare similar in value at small physical scales. This dependence may becomestronger when restricted to high AGN luminosities, though a larger sample isneeded for confirmation. These results indicate that the probability of AGNtriggering increases at later merger stages. This study is the first tosystematically probe down to nuclear separations of <1 kpc (~0.8 kpc) and isconsistent with predictions from simulations that AGN observability peaks inthis regime. We also find that the offset AGN are not preferentially obscuredcompared to the parent AGN sample, suggesting that our selection may betargeting galaxy mergers with relatively dust-free nuclear regions.

Spatially Offset Active Galactic Nuclei. II: Triggering in Galaxy Mergers