Quantifying the Rate of Nearby Dual AGNs: Archival Sample

We propose to analyze a sample of 26 nearby (z<0.035) AGN in order to measure the dual AGN fraction in the small-separation regime, where current angular resolution limits have prevented systematic analyses. We will analyze the sample with BAYMAX, a tool we've developed that uses a Bayesian framework to quantitatively evaluate whether a given source in a Chandra observation is a single or dual point source for separations <0.5''. We plan to combine this sample with new observations of 55 AGN to constrain, for the first time, the nearby dual AGN fraction. The outcome of this study will be a measurement of the local dual AGN fraction, to within 2.8%, at smaller limiting separations (14-250 pc) than has ever been done before.