scholarly journals Obscuration properties of mid-IR-selected AGN

2019 ◽  
Vol 491 (2) ◽  
pp. 1727-1735
Author(s):  
G Mountrichas ◽  
I Georgantopoulos ◽  
A Ruiz ◽  
G Kampylis

ABSTRACT The goal of this work is to study the obscuration properties of mid-infrared (mid-IR)-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN). For that purpose, we use Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) sources in the Stripe 82–XMM area to identify mid-IR AGN candidates, applying the Assef et al. criteria. Stripe 82 has optical photometry ≈2 times deeper than any single-epoch Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) region. XMM–Newton observations cover ∼26 deg2. Applying the aforementioned criteria, 1946 IR AGN are selected. ${\sim} 78{{\, \rm per\, cent}}$ have SDSS detection, while 1/3 of them are detected in X-rays, at a flux limit of $\rm {\sim} 5 \times 10^{-15}\, erg\, s^{-1}\, cm^{-2}$. Our final sample consists of 507 IR AGN with X-ray detection and optical spectra. Applying a $r-W2 > 6$ colour criterion, we find that the fraction of optically red AGN drop from 43 per cent for those sources with SDSS detection to $23{{\, \rm per\, cent}}$ for sources that also have X-ray detection. X-ray spectral fitting reveals 40 (${\sim} 8{{\, \rm per\, cent}}$) X-ray absorbed AGN ($N_\mathrm{ H} > 10^{22}\,{\rm cm}^{-2}$). Among the X-ray unabsorbed AGN, there are 70 red systems. To further investigate the absorption of these sources, we construct spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for the total IR AGN sample. SED fitting reveals that ${\sim} 20{{\, \rm per\, cent}}$ of the optically red sources have such colours because the galaxy emission is a primary component in the optical part of the SED, even though the AGN emission is not absorbed at these wavelengths. SED fitting also confirms that $12{{\, \rm per\, cent}}$ of the X-ray unabsorbed IR AGN are optically obscured.

2019 ◽  
Vol 488 (4) ◽  
pp. 5935-5940 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Aksaker ◽  
A Akyuz ◽  
S Avdan ◽  
H Avdan

ABSTRACT We present the results of a search for optical counterparts of ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) X-1 in the nearby galaxy NGC 2500 by using archival images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera (WFC3)/UVIS. We identified four optical sources as possible counterparts within the 2σ error radius of 0$^{\prime \prime }_{.}$3 in the images. However, only two of them were investigated as candidates for counterparts due to their point-like features and their identification in various filters. These two faint candidates have absolute magnitudes of MV ≈ −3.4 and −3.7. The spectral energy distributions of two candidates were modelled by a power-law spectrum with a photon index (α) ∼1.5, but the spectrum of one candidate shows a deviation. This may suggest that at least two components are responsible for the optical emission. The red part of the spectrum could arise from the companion star and the blue part could be interpreted as an evidence of reprocessing of the X-rays from the disc.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (S304) ◽  
pp. 209-212
Author(s):  
S. Mateos

AbstractWe present a highly reliable and efficient mid-infrared colour-based selection technique for luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) survey. Our technique is designed to identify objects with red mid-infrared power-law spectral energy distributions. We studied the dependency of our mid-infrared selection on the AGN intrinsic luminosity and the effectiveness of our technique to uncover obscured AGN missed in X-ray surveys. To do so we used two samples of luminous AGN independently selected in hard X-ray and optical surveys. We used the largest catalogue of 887 [OIII] λ5007-selected type 2 quasars (QSO2s) at z≲0.83 in the literature from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the 258 hard (>4.5 keV) X-ray-selected AGN from the Bright Ultrahard XMM-Newton Survey (BUXS). The effectiveness of our mid-infrared selection technique increases with the AGN luminosity. At high luminosities and at least up to z~1 our technique is very effective at identifying both Compton-thin and Compton-thick AGN.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S341) ◽  
pp. 21-25
Author(s):  
M. J. I. Brown ◽  
K. J. Duncan ◽  
H. Landt ◽  
M. Kirk ◽  
C. Ricci ◽  
...  

AbstarctWe present ongoing work on the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), derived from X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared and radio photometry and spectroscopy. Our work is motivated by new wide-field imaging surveys that will identify vast numbers of AGNs, and by the need to benchmark AGN SED fitting codes. We have constructed 41 SEDs of individual AGNs and 80 additional SEDs that mimic Seyfert spectra. All of our SEDs span 0.09 to 30μm, while some extend into the X-ray and/or radio. We have tested the utility of the SEDs by using them to generate AGN photometric redshifts, and they outperform SEDs from the prior literature, including reduced redshift errors and flux density residuals.


1973 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 235-249
Author(s):  
S. Hayakawa

The column densities of interstellar hydrogen to X-ray sources derived from their spectra are compared with those obtained from 21 cm radio observations. Referring to several observed results on Cyg X-2, Cygnus Loop etc., the interpretation of the low energy cut-off of the spectrum in terms of the interstellar absorption is subject to ambiguities due to a modification of the emission spectrum by Compton scattering in the sources and the contribution of emission lines.The result of soft X-ray sky surveys indicates that the diffuse component of soft X-rays consists of the extragalactic and the galactic components. The former has a hard component with a power law spectrum and a soft component which may be represented by an exponential spectrum. The galactic component is so soft that its spectrum may also be explained by thermal bremsstrahlung of temperature of about 0.1 keV. Its generation rate may account for the heating and ionization of interstellar matter. It is suggested that galactic diffuse soft X-rays are produced by active stars of a rather high number density.


1970 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 406-407
Author(s):  
M. J. Rees

Below 1 keV, analyses of X-ray background data are complicated by galactic absorption effects, which cause the received intensity to vary with galactic latitude. Bowyer et al. (1968) observed that the diffuse background did not fall off as rapidly as was expected towards the galactic plane. One plausible interpretation of their data would be to suppose that a significant flux of soft X-rays emanates from the disc itself. I wish to discuss what could be inferred about the latter component from improved observations of its latitude-dependence, and by indirect methods.


2003 ◽  
Vol 214 ◽  
pp. 70-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. P. Li

The energy range of hard X-rays is a key waveband to the study of high energy processes in celestial objects, but still remains poorly explored. In contrast to direct imaging methods used in the low energy X-ray and high energy gamma-ray bands, currently imaging in the hard X-ray band is mainly achieved through various modulation techniques. A new inversion technique, the direct demodulation method, has been developed since early 90s. with this technique, wide field and high resolution images can be derived from scanning data of a simple collimated detector. The feasibility of this technique has been confirmed by experiment, balloon-borne observation and analyzing simulated and real astronomical data. Based the development of methodology and instrumentation, a high energy astrophysics mission – Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) has been proposed and selected in China for a four-year Phase-A study. The main scientific objectives are a full-sky hard X-ray (20–200 keV) imaging survey and high signal-to-noise ratio timing studies of high energy sources.


2019 ◽  
Vol 629 ◽  
pp. A7
Author(s):  
Mikkel O. Lindholmer ◽  
Kevin A. Pimbblet

In this work we use the property that, on average, star formation rate increases with redshift for objects with the same mass – the so called galaxy main sequence – to measure the redshift of galaxy clusters. We use the fact that the general galaxy population forms both a quenched and a star-forming sequence, and we locate these ridges in the SFR–M⋆ plane with galaxies taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in discrete redshift bins. We fitted the evolution of the galaxy main sequence with redshift using a new method and then subsequently apply our method to a suite of X-ray selected galaxy clusters in an attempt to create a new distance measurement to clusters based on their galaxy main sequence. We demonstrate that although it is possible in several galaxy clusters to measure the main sequences, the derived distance and redshift from our galaxy main sequence fitting technique has an accuracy of σz = ±0.017 ⋅ (z + 1) and is only accurate up to z ≈ 0.2.


1995 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 431-434
Author(s):  
Eugene Moskalenko

Recent observations of the ASCA satellite resulted in the first identification of a GB source (Murakami et al. 1994). This success confirmed the importance of simultaneous observations in different wavelength bands for GB studies. Besides the ASCA results, there were several observations of GBs in X-ray band with the Ginga (Yoshida et al,.1989), V 78/1 (Laros et al. 1984) and other satellites. It became clear that GBs emit 4 - 8% of their energy in the 2 - 10 keV range. The main task now is to have an equipment which will be able to monitor the sky in X-rays in a mode similar to that of GRO observations, i.e. the telescope should have an all-sky field-of-view (FoV) and should work continuously.A telescope with these features but operating at soft X-ray energies may directly determine the GB distance scale, due to interstellar absorption of the photons with energies less than 2 keV, as was pointed out first by Schaefer (1993). Flaring sources similar to GBs in time scale may be found also in the EUV (hundreds of angstroms) with the help of very wide-field cameras. Of course each such device - in X-ray, soft X-ray and EUV bands - will discover many transient objects, flaring events, will study time variability of bright “stationary” sources etc. In this paper we describe several instrumental approaches in these fields.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (S308) ◽  
pp. 368-371
Author(s):  
Jukka Nevalainen ◽  
L. J. Liivamägi ◽  
E. Tempel ◽  
E. Branchini ◽  
M. Roncarelli ◽  
...  

AbstractWe have developed a new method to approach the missing baryons problem. We assume that the missing baryons reside in a form of Warm Hot Intergalactic Medium, i.e. the WHIM. Our method consists of (a) detecting the coherent large scale structure in the spatial distribution of galaxies that traces the Cosmic Web and that in hydrodynamical simulations is associated to the WHIM, (b) mapping its luminosity into a galaxy luminosity density field, (c) using numerical simulations to relate the luminosity density to the density of the WHIM, (d) applying this relation to real data to trace the WHIM using the observed galaxy luminosities in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and 2dF redshift surveys. In our application we find evidence for the WHIM along the line of sight to the Sculptor Wall, at redshifts consistent with the recently reported X-ray absorption line detections. Our indirect WHIM detection technique complements the standard method based on the detection of characteristic X-ray absorption lines, showing that the galaxy luminosity density is a reliable signpost for the WHIM. For this reason, our method could be applied to current galaxy surveys to optimise the observational strategies for detecting and studying the WHIM and its properties. Our estimates of the WHIM hydrogen column density NH in Sculptor agree with those obtained via the X-ray analysis. Due to the additional NH estimate, our method has potential for improving the constrains of the physical parameters of the WHIM as derived with X-ray absorption, and thus for improving the understanding of the missing baryons problem.


1982 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 589-595
Author(s):  
W. T. Sanders ◽  
J. P. Cassinelli ◽  
K. A. van der Hucht

Preliminary results of three X-ray surveys are presented. Out of a sample of 20 stars, X-rays were detected from four Wolf-Rayet stars and two 08f+ stars. The detected stars have about the same mean value as 0 stars for the X-ray to total luminosity ratio, LX/L = 10−7, but exhibit a much larger variation about the mean. The spectral energy distributions are also found to be like that of 0 stars in that they do not exhibit large attenuation of X-rays softer than 1 keV. This indicates that for both the 0 stars and WR stars much of the X-ray emission is coming from hot wisps or shocks in the outer regions of the winds and not from a thin source at the base of the wind. The general spectral shape and flux level place severe restrictions on models that attribute the lack of hydrogen emission lines to extremely high temperatures of the gas in the wind.


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