The Host Galaxies of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies: Nuclear Dust Morphology and Starburst Rings

We present a study of the nuclear morphology of a sample of narrow- and broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s and BLS1s, respectively) based on broadband images in the Hubble Space Telescope archives. In our previous study we found that large-scale stellar bars at >1 kpc from the nucleus are more common in NLS1s than BLS1s. In this paper we find that NLS1s preferentially have grand-design dust spirals within ∼1 kpc of their centers. We also find that NLS1s have a higher fraction of nuclear star-forming rings than BLS1s. We find that many of the morphological differences are due to the presence or absence of a large-scale stellar bar within the spiral host galaxy. In general, barred Seyfert 1 galaxies tend to have grand-design dust spirals at their centers, confirming the results of other researchers. The high fraction of grand-design nuclear dust spirals and stellar nuclear rings observed in NLS1s' host galaxies suggests a means for efficient fueling of their nuclei to support their high Eddington ratios.