Optical spectra of IRAS 'warm' galaxies

Abstract

Redshifts, relative emission-line-intensity measurements, and optical spectral classifications are presented for 30 galaxies selected by the IRAS observers as Seyfert candidates on the basis of their infrared properties. The authors confirm earlier results that a large number of these objects are indeed previously unknown Seyfert galaxies, most of them Seyfert 2s. These IRAS Seyfert 2 galaxies as a group are at relatively small redshift, and thus represent a low-luminosity tail of the Seyfert galaxy luminosity function. There are in addition a significant number of Liners among them, as well as H II region galaxies. Many of the IRAS Seyfert 2 and H II region galaxies have line spectra that are significantly more heavily reddened than samples of previously known objects of these types.