NEAR-INFRARED IMAGING OF HARD X-RAY SELECTED ACTIVE GALAXIES .1. DECOMPOSITION INTO NUCLEAR AND STELLAR COMPONENTS

In this paper and in Paper II (this issue), we present results from a near-infrared study of a complete hard X-ray selected sample of AGN, which are mainly Seyfert 1s. In Paper I we describe the method used to deconvolve the radial luminosity profiles into nuclear, bulge, and disc components. We find that, for many Seyferts in this sample, starlight contributes a significant fraction of the light from the nuclear region, even within a small projected aperture. The stellar fraction tends to increase as the intrinsic luminosity decreases. Therefore corrections must be made to remove the stellar light in order to study the properties of the non-stellar continuum. In Paper II we discuss the origin of the near-infrared continuum, and its relation to the emission properties at other frequencies.