HI absorption towards low luminosity radio-loud AGNs of different accretion modes and WISE colours

<p>HI absorption studies of active galaxies enable us to probe their circumnuclear regions and the general interstellar medium, and study the supply of gas which may trigger the nuclear activity. We investigated the detection rate of HI absorption on the nature of radio galaxies based on their emission-line spectra, nature of the host galaxies based on the WISE colours and their radio structure, which may help understand the different accretion modes. The highest detection rate of HI absorption is found in the `late-type' galaxies with WISE infrared colours W2-W3 > 2, which is typical of gas-rich systems, along with a compact radio structure. Almost all the high-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs) in our sample have W2-W3 > 2. The HI detection rate for low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) with W2-W3 > 2 and compact radio structure is high (~ 71 %). This is similar to compact HERGs with W2-W3 > 2 where, although the numbers are small, all three sources are detected with HI absorption. In HERGs, compact radio structure in the nuclear or circumnuclear region could give rise to absorption by gas in the dusty torus in addition to gas in the interstellar medium. However, higher specific star formation rate (sSFR) for the LERGs with W2-W3 > 2 suggests that HI absorption may be largely due to star-forming gas in their hosts.