ABSTRACT
Code Investigating GALaxy Emission (cigale) is a powerful multiwavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code for extragalactic studies. However, the current version of cigale is ...not able to fit X-ray data, which often provide unique insights into active galactic nucleus (AGN) intrinsic power. We develop a new X-ray module for cigale, allowing it to fit SEDs from the X-ray to infrared (IR). We also improve the AGN fitting of cigale from UV-to-IR wavelengths. We implement a modern clumpy two-phase torus model, skirtor. To account for moderately extincted type 1 AGNs, we implement polar-dust extinction. We publicly release the source code (named ‘x-cigale’). We test x-cigale with X-ray detected AGNs in SDSS, COSMOS, and AKARI-NEP. The fitting quality (as indicated by reduced χ2) is good in general, indicating that x-cigale is capable of modelling the observed SED from X-ray to IR. We discuss constrainability and degeneracy of model parameters in the fitting of AKARI-NEP, for which excellent mid-IR photometric coverage is available. We also test fitting a sample of AKARI-NEP galaxies for which only X-ray upper limits are available from Chandra observations, and find that the upper limit can effectively constrain the AGN SED contribution for some systems. Finally, using x-cigale, we assess the ability of Athena to constrain the AGN activity in future extragalactic studies.
Extremely red quasars in BOSS Hamann, Fred; Zakamska, Nadia L; Ross, Nicholas ...
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
01/2017, Letnik:
464, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Red quasars are candidate young objects in an early transition stage of massive galaxy evolution. Our team recently discovered a population of extremely red quasars (ERQs) in the Baryon Oscillation ...Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) that has a suite of peculiar emission-line properties including large rest equivalent widths (REWs), unusual 'wingless' line profiles, large N v/Ly..., N v/C iv, Si iv/C iv and other flux ratios, and very broad and blueshifted Oiii ...5007. Here we present a new catalogue of C iv and N v emission-line data for 216 188 BOSS quasars to characterize the ERQ line properties further. We show that they depend sharply on UV-to-mid-IR colour, secondarily on REW(C iv), and not at all on luminosity or the Baldwin Effect. We identify a 'core' sample of 97 ERQs with nearly uniform peculiar properties selected via i-W3 greater than or equal to 4.6 (AB) and REW(C iv) greater than or equal to 100 A at redshifts 2.0-3.4. A broader search finds 235 more red quasars with similar unusual characteristics. The core ERQs have median luminosity ...log L(ergs s super( -1))... ~ 47.1, sky density 0.010 deg super( -2), surprisingly flat/blue UV spectra given their red UV-to-mid-IR colours, and common outflow signatures including BALs or BAL-like features and large C iv emission-line blueshifts. Their SEDs and line properties are inconsistent with normal quasars behind a dust reddening screen. We argue that the core ERQs are a unique obscured quasar population with extreme physical conditions related to powerful outflows across the line-forming regions. Patchy obscuration by small dusty clouds could produce the observed UV extinctions without substantial UV reddening. (ProQuest: ... denotes formulae/symbols omitted.)
ABSTRACT We present X-ray source catalogs for the 7 Ms exposure of the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S), which covers a total area of 484.2 arcmin2. Utilizing wavdetect for initial source detection ...and ACIS Extract for photometric extraction and significance assessment, we create a main source catalog containing 1008 sources that are detected in up to three X-ray bands: 0.5-7.0 keV, 0.5-2.0 keV, and 2-7 keV. A supplementary source catalog is also provided, including 47 lower-significance sources that have bright ( ) near-infrared counterparts. We identify multiwavelength counterparts for 992 (98.4%) of the main-catalog sources, and we collect redshifts for 986 of these sources, including 653 spectroscopic redshifts and 333 photometric redshifts. Based on the X-ray and multiwavelength properties, we identify 711 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) from the main-catalog sources. Compared to the previous 4 Ms CDF-S catalogs, 291 of the main-catalog sources are new detections. We have achieved unprecedented X-ray sensitivity with average flux limits over the central 1 arcmin2 region of 1.9 × 10−17, 6.4 × 10−18, and 2.7 × 10−17 erg cm−2 s−1 in the three X-ray bands, respectively. We provide cumulative number-count measurements observing, for the first time, that normal galaxies start to dominate the X-ray source population at the faintest 0.5-2.0 keV flux levels. The highest X-ray source density reaches 50,500 deg−2, and 47% 4% of these sources are AGNs ( 23,900 deg−2).
We review results from cosmic X-ray surveys of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) over the past
≈
15
years that have dramatically improved our understanding of growing supermassive black holes in the ...distant universe. First, we discuss the utility of such surveys for AGN investigations and the capabilities of the missions making these surveys, emphasizing
Chandra
,
XMM-Newton
, and
NuSTAR
. Second, we briefly describe the main cosmic X-ray surveys, the essential roles of complementary multiwavelength data, and how AGNs are selected from these surveys. We then review key results from these surveys on the AGN population and its evolution (“demographics”), the physical processes operating in AGNs (“physics”), and the interactions between AGNs and their environments (“ecology”). We conclude by describing some significant unresolved questions and prospects for advancing the field.
Mergers of neutron stars are known to be associated with short γ-ray bursts
. If the neutron-star equation of state is sufficiently stiff (that is, the pressure increases sharply as the density ...increases), at least some such mergers will leave behind a supramassive or even a stable neutron star that spins rapidly with a strong magnetic field
(that is, a magnetar). Such a magnetar signature may have been observed in the form of the X-ray plateau that follows up to half of observed short γ-ray bursts
. However, it has been expected that some X-ray transients powered by binary neutron-star mergers may not be associated with a short γ-ray burst
. A fast X-ray transient (CDF-S XT1) was recently found to be associated with a faint host galaxy, the redshift of which is unknown
. Its X-ray and host-galaxy properties allow several possible explanations including a short γ-ray burst seen off-axis, a low-luminosity γ-ray burst at high redshift, or a tidal disruption event involving an intermediate-mass black hole and a white dwarf
. Here we report a second X-ray transient, CDF-S XT2, that is associated with a galaxy at redshift z = 0.738 (ref.
). The measured light curve is fully consistent with the X-ray transient being powered by a millisecond magnetar. More intriguingly, CDF-S XT2 lies in the outskirts of its star-forming host galaxy with a moderate offset from the galaxy centre, as short γ-ray bursts often do
. The estimated event-rate density of similar X-ray transients, when corrected to the local value, is consistent with the event-rate density of binary neutron-star mergers that is robustly inferred from the detection of the gravitational-wave event GW170817.
This paper presents a survey of X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with optical spectroscopic follow-up in a ∼ 18 deg2 area of the equatorial XMM-XXL north field. A sample of 8445 ...point-like X-ray sources detected by XMM–Newton above a limiting flux of
$F_{\rm 0.5{\rm -}10\, keV} > 10^{-15} \rm \,erg\, cm^{-2}\, s^{-1}$
was matched to optical (Sloan Digital Sky Survey, SDSS) and infrared (IR; WISE) counterparts. We followed up 3042 sources brighter than r = 22.5 mag with the SDSS Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) spectrograph. The spectra yielded a reliable redshift measurement for 2578 AGNs in the redshift range z = 0.02–5.0, with 0.5-2 keV luminosities ranging from 1039-1046 erg s− 1. This is currently the largest published spectroscopic sample of X-ray-selected AGNs in a contiguous area. The BOSS spectra of AGN candidates show a distribution of optical line widths which is clearly bimodal, allowing an efficient separation between broad- and narrow-emission line AGNs. The former dominate our sample (70 per cent) due to the relatively bright X-ray flux limit and the optical BOSS magnitude limit. We classify the narrow-emission line objects (22 per cent of the full sample) using standard optical emission line diagnostics: the majority have line ratios indicating the dominant source of ionization is the AGN. A small number (8 per cent of the full sample) exhibit the typical narrow line ratios of star-forming galaxies, or only have absorption lines in their spectra. We term the latter two classes ‘elusive’ AGN, which would not be easy to identify correctly without their X-ray emission. We also compare X-ray (XMM–Newton), optical colour (SDSS) and and IR (WISE) AGN selections in this field. X-ray observations reveal, by far, the largest number of AGN. The overlap between the selections, which is a strong function of the imaging depth in a given band, is also remarkably small. We show using spectral stacking that a large fraction of the X-ray AGNs would not be selectable via optical or IR colours due to host galaxy contamination. A substantial fraction of AGN may therefore be missed by these longer wavelength selection methods.
We present subkiloparsec-scale mapping of the 870 m ALMA continuum emission in six luminous (LIR ∼ 5 × 1012 L ) submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) from the ALESS survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field ...South. Our high-fidelity 0 07-resolution imaging (∼500 pc) reveals robust evidence for structures with deconvolved sizes of 0.5-1 kpc embedded within (dominant) exponential dust disks. The large-scale morphologies of the structures within some of the galaxies show clear curvature and/or clump-like structures bracketing elongated nuclear emission, suggestive of bars, star-forming rings, and spiral arms. In this interpretation, the ratio of the "ring" and "bar" radii (1.9 0.3) agrees with that measured for such features in local galaxies. These potential spiral/ring/bar structures would be consistent with the idea of tidal disturbances, with their detailed properties implying flat inner rotation curves and Toomre-unstable disks (Q < 1). The inferred one-dimensional velocity dispersions ( r 70-160 km s−1) are marginally consistent with the limits implied if the sizes of the largest structures are comparable to the Jeans length. We create maps of the star formation rate density ( SFR) on ∼500 pc scales and show that the SMGs are able to sustain a given (galaxy-averaged) SFR over much larger physical scales than local (ultra)luminous infrared galaxies. However, on 500 pc scales, they do not exceed the Eddington limit set by radiation pressure on dust. If confirmed by kinematics, the potential presence of nonaxisymmetric structures would provide a means for net angular momentum loss and efficient star formation, helping to explain the very high star formation rates measured in SMGs.
We present a detailed characterization of the 849 broad-line quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Our quasar sample covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < ...4.5 and is flux-limited to iPSF < 21.7 without any other cuts on quasar properties. The main sample characterization includes: (1) spectral measurements of the continuum and broad emission lines for individual objects from the coadded first-season spectroscopy in 2014, (2) identification of broad and narrow absorption lines in the spectra, and (3) optical variability properties for continuum and broad lines from multi-epoch spectroscopy. We provide improved systemic redshift estimates for all quasars and demonstrate the effects of the signal-to-noise ratio on the spectral measurements. We compile measured properties for all 849 quasars along with supplemental multi-wavelength data for subsets of our sample from other surveys. The SDSS-RM sample probes a diverse range in quasar properties and shows well-detected continuum and broad-line variability for many objects from first-season monitoring data. The compiled properties serve as the benchmark for follow-up work based on SDSS-RM data. The spectral fitting tools are made public along with this work.
The innermost regions of accretion disks around black holes are strongly irradiated by X-rays that are emitted from a highly variable, compact corona, in the immediate vicinity of the black hole
. ...The X-rays that are seen reflected from the disk
, and the time delays, as variations in the X-ray emission echo or 'reverberate' off the disk
, provide a view of the environment just outside the event horizon. I Zwicky 1 (I Zw 1) is a nearby narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy
. Previous studies of the reverberation of X-rays from its accretion disk revealed that the corona is composed of two components: an extended, slowly varying component extending over the surface of the inner accretion disk, and a collimated core, with luminosity fluctuations propagating upwards from its base, which dominates the more rapid variability
. Here we report observations of X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in I Zw 1. X-ray reflection from the accretion disk is detected through a relativistically broadened iron K line and Compton hump in the X-ray emission spectrum. Analysis of the X-ray flares reveals short flashes of photons consistent with the re-emergence of emission from behind the black hole. The energy shifts of these photons identify their origins from different parts of the disk
. These are photons that reverberate off the far side of the disk, and are bent around the black hole and magnified by the strong gravitational field. Observing photons bent around the black hole confirms a key prediction of general relativity.
We study the hard X-ray spectral properties of 10 highly luminous radio- quiet (RQ) active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at image, including new XMM- Newton observations of four of these sources. We find a ...significant correlation between the normalized accretion rate (L/L sub(Edd)) and the hard X-ray photon index ( Gamma ) for 35 moderate- to high-luminosity RQ AGNs, including our 10 highly luminous sources. Within the limits of our sample, we show that a measurement of Gamma and L sub(X) can provide an estimate of L/L sub(Edd) and black hole mass (M sub(BH)) with a mean uncertainty of a factor of image3 on the predicted values of these properties. This may provide a useful probe for tracing the history of BH growth in the universe, utilizing samples of X-ray-selected AGNs for which L/L sub(Edd) and M sub(BH) have not yet been determined systematically. It may prove to be a useful way to probe BH growth in distant Compton-thin type 2 AGNs. We also find that the optical-X-ray spectral slope ( alpha sub(ox)) depends primarily on optical-UV luminosity rather than on L/L sub(Edd) in a sample of RQ AGNs spanning 5 orders of magnitude in luminosity and over 2 orders of magnitude in L/L sub(Edd). We detect a significant Compton-reflection continuum in two of our highly luminous sources, and in the stacked X-ray spectrum of seven other sources with similar luminosities, we obtain a mean relative Compton reflection of image and an upper limit on the rest-frame equivalent width of a neutral Fe K alpha line of 105 eV. We do not detect a significant steepening of the X-ray power-law spectrum below rest-frame 2 keV in any of our highly luminous sources, suggesting that a soft-excess feature, commonly observed in local AGNs, either does not depend strongly on L/L sub(Edd), or is not accessible at high redshifts using current X- ray detectors.
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