The connection between radio-loudness and central surface brightness
  profiles in optically-selected low-luminosity active galaxies
  Recent results indicate a correlation between nuclear radio-loudness of
active galaxies and their central stellar surface-brightness profiles, in that
`core' galaxies (with inner logarithmic slope {\gamma}<0.3) are significantly
more radio loud than `power-law' galaxies ({\gamma}>0.5). This connection,
which indicates possible links between radio-loudness and galaxy formation
history (e.g. through black hole spin) has so far only been confirmed for a
radio-selected sample of galaxies. Furthermore, it has since been shown that
the Nuker law, which was used to parameterise the brightness profiles in these
studies, gives a poor description of the brightness profile. Here, we present
an analysis of the central surface brightness profiles of the active galaxies
of Hubble Type T<3, that were identified by the optically-selected Palomar
spectroscopic survey of nearby galaxies. We fit the brightness profiles using
Sersic, Core-Sersic and, where necessary, Double-Sersic models, which we fit to
the semi-major axis brightness profiles extracted from high resolution images
of the galaxies from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We use these fits to
classify the galaxies as `Core', `Sersic' or `Double-Sersic' and compare this
classification with the properties of the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). We
find that AGN hosted in Core galaxies are generally more radio-loud than those
hosted in Sersic galaxies, although there is a large overlap between the two
subsamples. The correlation between radio-loudness and brightness profile can
partly be explained by a correlation between radio-loudness and black hole
mass. Additionally, there is a significant (99 per cent confidence) partial
correlation between radio-loudness and the Core/Sersic classification of the
host galaxy, which lends support to the previous results based on the
radio-selected sample.
