2019ApJ...876..132N

We report on the optical properties of infrared (IR)-bright dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs) that are defined as (i-[22])_AB≥ 7.0. Because supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in IR-bright DOGs are expected to be rapidly growing in the major-merger scenario, they provide useful clues for understanding the coevolution of SMBHs and their host galaxies. However, the optical properties of IR-bright DOGs remain unclear because the optical emission of a DOG is very faint. By combining ∼105 deg² images of the optical, near-IR, and mid-IR data obtained from the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey, the VISTA VIKING survey, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer all-sky survey, respectively, 571 IR-bright DOGs were selected. We found that IR-bright DOGs show a redder (g - z)_AB color than do other populations of dusty galaxies, such as ultraluminous IR galaxies (ULIRGs) at a similar redshift, with a significantly large dispersion. Among the selected DOGs, star formation (SF)-dominated DOGs show a relatively red color, while active galactic nucleus (AGN)-dominated DOGs show a rather blue color in optical. This result is consistent with the idea that the relative AGN contribution in the optical emission becomes more significant at a later stage in the major-merger scenario. We discovered eight IR-bright DOGs showing a significant blue excess in blue HSC bands. This blue excess can be interpreted as a leaked AGN emission that is either a directly leaking or a scattered AGN emission, as proposed for some blue-excess Hot DOGs in earlier studies.