AKARI Detections of Hot Dust in Luminous Infrared Galaxies
  We present a new sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) identified using the
catalog of the AKARI Mid-infrared(MIR) All-Sky Survey. Our MIR search has an
advantage in detecting AGNs that are obscured at optical wavelengths due to
extinction. We first selected AKARI 9micron excess sources with
F(9micron)/F(K_S)>2 where K_S magnitudes were taken from the Two Micron All Sky
Survey. We then obtained follow-up near-infrared spectroscopy with the
AKARI/IRC, to confirm that the excess is caused by hot dust. We also obtained
optical spectroscopy with the Kast Double Spectrograph on the Shane 3-m
telescope at Lick Observatory. On the basis of on these observations, we
detected hot dust with a characteristic temperature of ~500K in two luminous
infrared galaxies. The hot dust is suspected to be associated with AGNs that
exhibit their nonstellar activity not in the optical, but in the near- and
mid-infrared bands, i.e., they harbor buried AGNs. The host galaxy stellar
masses of 4-6 x 10^9 M_sun are small compared with the hosts in
optically-selected AGN populations. These objects were missed by previous
surveys, demonstrating the power of the AKARI MIR All-Sky Survey to widen AGN
searches to include more heavily obscured objects. The existence of multiple
dusty star clusters with massive stars cannot be completely ruled out with our
current data.
