The galactic spin of AGN galaxies
  Using an extensive sample of galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey Data Release 5, we compare the angular momentum distribution of active
galactic nucleus (AGN) with non-AGN hosting late-type galaxies. To this end we
characterize galactic spin through the dimensionless angular momentum parameter
$\lambda$, which we estimate approximately through simple dynamical
considerations. Using a volume limited sample, we find a considerable
difference when comparing the empirical distributions of $\lambda$ for AGNs and
non-AGN galaxies, the AGNs showing typically low $\lambda$ values and
associated dispersions, while non-AGNs present higher $\lambda$ values and a
broader distribution. A more striking difference is found when looking at
$\lambda$ distributions in thin $M_{r}$ cuts, while the spin of non-AGN
galaxies presents an anti-correlation with $M_{r}$, with bright (massive)
galaxies having low spins, AGN host galaxies present uniform values of
$\lambda$ at all magnitudes, a behavior probably imposed by the fact that most
late-type AGN galaxies present a narrow range in color, with a typical constant
$\lambda$ value. We also find that the fraction of AGN hosting galaxies in our
sample strongly depends on galactic spin, increasing dramatically for
decreasing $\lambda$. For AGN host galaxies we compute the mass of their
supermassive black holes and find that this value tends to be higher for low
spin galaxies, even at fixed luminosity, a result that could account, to a
certain extent, for the spread on the luminosity black-hole mass relation.
