The XMM deep survey in the CDF-S Ranalli, P; Comastri, A; Vignali, C ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
07/2013, Letnik:
555
Journal Article
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Nuclear obscuration plays a key role in the initial phases of AGN growth, yet not many highly obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) are currently known beyond the local Universe, and their search is ...an active topic of research. The XMM-Newton survey in the Chandra Deep Field South (XMM-CDFS) aims at detecting and studying the spectral properties of a significant number of obscured and Compton-thick AGN. The large effective area of XMM-Newton in the 2-10 and 5-10 keV bands, coupled with a 3.45 Ms nominal exposure time, allows us to build clean samples in both bands) and makes the XMM-CDFS the deepest XMM-Newfon survey currently published in the 5-10 keV band. The large multi-wavelength and spectroscopic coverage of the CDFS area allows for an immediate and abundant scientific return. In this paper, we present the data reduction of the XMM-CDFS observations, the method for source detection in the 2-10 and 5-10 keV bands, and the resulting catalogues.
Models of galaxy evolution assume some connection between the AGN and star formation activity in galaxies. We use the multi-wavelength information of the CDFS to assess this issue. We select the AGNs ...from the 3 Ms XMM-Newton survey and measure the star-formation rates of their hosts using data that probe rest-frame wavelengths longward of 20 μm, predominantly from deep 100 μm and 160 μm Herschel observations, but also from Spitzer-MIPS-70 μm. Star-formation rates are obtained from spectral energy distribution fits, identifying and subtracting an AGN component. Our sample consists of sources in the z ≈ 0.5−4 redshift range, with star-formation rates SFR ≈ 101−103 M⊙ yr-1 and stellar masses M⋆ ≈ 1010−1011.5 M⊙. We divide the star-formation rates by the stellar masses of the hosts to derive specific star-formation rates (sSFR) and find evidence for a positive correlation between the AGN activity (proxied by the X-ray luminosity) and the sSFR for themost active systems with X-ray luminosities exceeding Lx ≃ 1043 erg s-1 and redshifts z ≳ 1. We do not find evidence for such a correlation for lower luminosity systems or those at lower redshifts, consistent with previous studies. We do not find any correlation between the SFR (or the sSFR) and the X-ray absorption derived from high-quality XMM-Newton spectra either, showing that the absorption is likely to be linked to the nuclear region rather than the host, while the star-formation is not nuclear. Comparing the sSFR of the hosts to the characteristic sSFR of star-forming galaxies at the same redshift (the so-called “main sequence”) we find that the AGNs reside mostly in main-sequence and starburst hosts, reflecting the AGN-sSFR connection; however the infrared selection might bias this result. Limiting our analysis to the highest X-ray luminosity AGNs (X-ray QSOs with Lx > 1044 erg s-1), we find that the highest-redshift QSOs (with z ≳ 2) reside predominantly in starburst hosts, with an average sSFR more than double that of the “main sequence”, and we find a few cases of QSOs at z ≈ 1.5 with specific star-formation rates compatible with the main-sequence, or even in the “quiescent” region. Finally, we test the reliability of the colour–magnitude diagram (plotting the rest-frame optical colours against the stellar mass) in assessing host properties, and find a significant correlation between rest-frame colour (without any correction for AGN contribution or dust extinction) and sSFR excess relative to the “main sequence” at a given redshift. This means that the most “starbursty” objects have the bluest rest-frame colours.
We present the properties of X-ray detected dust obscured galaxies (DOGs) in the Chandra deep field south. In recent years, it has been proposed that a significant percentage of the elusive ...Compton-thick (CT) active galactic nuclei (AGN) could be hidden among DOGs. This type of galaxy is characterized by a very high infrared (IR) to optical flux ratio (f24 μm/fR > 1000), which in the case of CT AGN could be due to the suppression of AGN emission by absorption and its subsequent re-emission in the IR. The most reliable way of confirming the CT nature of an AGN is by X-ray spectroscopy. In a previous work, we presented the properties of X-ray detected DOGs by making use of the deepest X-ray observations available at that time, the 2Ms observations of the Chandra deep fields, the Chandra deep field north (CDF-N), and the Chandra deep field south (CDF-S). In that work, we only found a moderate percentage (<50%) of CT AGN among the DOGs sample. However, we pointed out that the limited photon statistics for most of the sources in the sample did not allow us to strongly constrain this number. In this paper, we further explore the properties of the sample of DOGs in the CDF-S presented in that work by using not only a deeper 6Ms Chandra survey of the CDF-S, but also by combining these data with the 3Ms XMM-Newton survey of the CDF-S. We also take advantage of the great coverage of the CDF-S region from the UV to the far-IR to fit the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of our sources. Out of the 14 AGN composing our sample, 9 are highly absorbed (NH > 1023 cm-2), whereas 2 look unabsorbed, and the other 3 are only moderately absorbed. Among the highly absorbed AGN, we find that only three could be considered CT AGN. In only one of these three cases, we detect a strong Fe Kα emission line; the source is already classified as a CT AGN with Chandra data in a previous work. Here we confirm its CT nature by combining Chandra and XMM-Newton data. For the other two CT candidates, the non-detection of the line could be because of the low number of counts in their X-ray spectra, but their location in the L2−10 keV/L12 μm plot supports their CT classification. Although a higher number of CT sources could be hidden among the X-ray undetected DOGs, our results indicate that DOGs could be as well composed of only a fraction of CT AGN plus a number of moderate to highly absorbed AGN, as previously suggested. From our study of the X-ray undetected DOGs in the CDF-S, we estimate a percentage between 13 and 44% of CT AGN among the whole population of DOGs.
The XMM deep survey in the CDF-S Vignali, C; Iwasawa, K; Comastri, A ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
11/2015, Letnik:
583
Journal Article
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In active galactic nuclei (AGN)-galaxy co-evolution models, AGN winds and outflows are often invoked to explain why super-massive black holes and galaxies stop growing efficiently at a certain phase ...of their lives. They are commonly referred to as the leading actors of feedback processes. Evidence of ultra-fast (v > ~ 0.05c) outflows in the innermost regions of AGN has been collected in the past decade by sensitive X-ray observations for sizable samples of AGN, mostly at low redshift. Here we present ultra-deep XMM-Newton and Chandra spectral data of an obscured (N sub(H) asymptotically = 2 x 10 super(23) cm super(-2)), intrinsically luminous (L sub(2-10 keV) asymptotically = 4 x 10 super(44) erg s super(-1)) quasar (named PID352) at z asymptotically = 1.6 (derived from the X-ray spectral analysis) in the Chandra Deep Field-South. The source is characterized by an iron emission and absorption line complex at observed energies of E asymptotically = 2-3 keV. While the emission line is interpreted as being due to neutral iron (consistent with the presence of cold absorption), the absorption feature is due to highly ionized iron transitions (FeXXV, FeXXVI) with an outflowing velocity of 0.14 super(+0.02) sub(-0.06)c, as derived from photoionization models. The mass outflow rate - ~2 M sub(middot in circle) yr super(-1) - is similar to the source accretion rate, and the derived mechanical energy rate is ~9.5 x 10 super(44) erg s super(-1), corresponding to 9% of the source bolometric luminosity. PID352 represents one of the few cases where indications of X-ray outflowing gas have been observed at high redshift thus far. This wind is powerful enough to provide feedback on the host galaxy.
The XXL Survey Fotopoulou, S; Pacaud, F; Paltani, S ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
08/2016, Letnik:
592, Številka:
A5
Journal Article
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Context. X-ray extragalactic surveys are ideal laboratories for the study of the evolution and clustering of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Usually, a combination of deep and wide surveys is necessary ...to create a complete picture of the population. Deep X-ray surveys provide the faint population at high redshift, while wide surveys provide the rare bright sources. Nevertheless, very wide area surveys often lack the ancillary information available for modern deep surveys. The XXL survey spans two fields of a combined 50 deg super(2) observed for more than 6Ms with XMM-Newton, occupying the parameter space that lies between deep surveys and very wide area surveys; at the same time it benefits from a wealth of ancillary data. Aims. This paper marks the first release of the XXL point source catalogue including four optical photometry bands and redshift estimates. Our sample is selected in the 2 ? 10 keV energy band with the goal of providing a sizable sample useful for AGN studies. The limiting flux is F sub(2 ? 10 keV)= 4.8 x 10 super(-14) erg s super(-1) cm super(-2). Methods. We use both public and proprietary data sets to identify the counterparts of the X-ray point-like sources by means of a likelihood ratio test. We improve upon the photometric redshift determination for AGN by applying a Random Forest classification trained to identify for each object the optimal photometric redshift category (passive, star forming, starburst, AGN, quasi-stellar objects (QSO)). Additionally, we assign a probability to each source that indicates whether it might be a star or an outlier. We apply Bayesian analysis to model the X-ray spectra assuming a power-law model with the presence of an absorbing medium. Results. We find that the average unabsorbed photon index is ?Gamma? = 1.85 + or - 0.40 while the average hydrogen column density is log?N sub(H)? = 21.07 + or - 1.2 cm super(-2). We find no trend of Gamma or N sub(H) with redshift and a fraction of 26% absorbed sources (logN sub(H)> 22) consistent with the literature on bright sources (logL sub(x)> 44). The counterpart identification rate reaches 96.7% for sources in the northern field, 97.7% for the southern field, and 97.2% in total. The photometric redshift accuracy is 0.095 for the full XMM-XXL with 28% catastrophic outliers estimated on a sample of 339 sources. Conclusions. We show that the XXL-1000-AGN sample number counts extended the number counts of the COSMOS survey to higher fluxes and are fully consistent with the Euclidean expectation. We constrain the intrinsic luminosity function of AGN in the 2 ? 10 keV energy band where the unabsorbed X-ray flux is estimated from the X-ray spectral fit up to z= 3. Finally, we demonstrate the presence of a supercluster size structure at redshift 0.14, identified by means of percolation analysis of the XXL-1000-AGN sample. The XXL survey, reaching a medium flux limit and covering a wide area, is a stepping stone between current deep fields and planned wide area surveys.
The XXL Survey Koulouridis, E.; Faccioli, L.; Le Brun, A. M. C. ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
12/2018, Letnik:
620
Journal Article
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Modern cosmological simulations heavily rely on feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) in order to stave off overcooling in massive galaxies, and galaxy groups and clusters. Given that AGN are a ...key component of such simulations, an important independent test is whether or not the simulations capture the broad demographics of the observed AGN population. However, to date, comparisons between observed and simulated AGN populations have been relatively limited. Here, we have used the cosmo-OWLS suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to produce realistic synthetic catalogs of X-ray AGN out to z = 3, with the aim of comparing the catalogs to the observed X-ray AGN population in the XXL survey and other recent surveys. We focused on the unabsorbed X-ray luminosity function (XLF), the Eddington ratio distribution, the black hole mass function, and the projected clustering of X-ray AGN. To compute the unabsorbed XLF of the simulated AGN, we used recent empirically-determined (luminosity-dependent) bolometric corrections, in order to convert the simulated bolometric luminosity into an observable X-ray luminosity. We show that, using these corrections, the simulated AGN sample accurately reproduces the observed XLF over 3 orders of magnitude in X-ray luminosity in all redshift bins from z = 0 out to z = 3. To compare to the observed Eddington ratio distribution and the clustering of AGN, we produced detailed “XMM-Newton-detected” catalogs of the simulated AGN. This requires the production of synthetic X-ray images extracted from light cones of the simulations, which self-consistently contain both the X-ray AGN and the emission from diffuse, hot gas within galaxies, galaxy groups, and clusters and that fold in the relevant instrumental effects of XMM-Newton. We apply a luminosity- and redshift-dependent obscuration function for the AGN and employ the same AGN detection algorithm as used for the real XXL survey. We demonstrate that the detected population of simulated AGN reproduces the observed Eddington ratio distribution and projected clustering from XXL quite well. Based on these comparisons, we conclude that the simulations have a broadly realistic population of AGN and that our synthetic X-ray AGN catalogs should be useful for interpreting additional trends (e.g. environmental dependencies) and as a helpful tool for quantifying AGN contamination in galaxy group and cluster X-ray surveys.
The XMM-Large scale structure (XMM-LSS), XMM-Cosmological evolution survey (XMM-COSMOS), and XMM-Chandra deep field south (XMM-CDFS) surveys are complementary in terms of sky coverage and depth. ...Together, they form a clean sample with the least possible variance in instrument effective areas and point spread function. Therefore this is one of the best samples available to determine the 2–10 keV luminosity function of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their evolution. The samples and the relevant corrections for incompleteness are described. A total of 2887 AGN is used to build the LF in the luminosity interval 1042–1046 erg s-1 and in the redshift interval 0.001–4. A new method to correct for absorption by considering the probability distribution for the column density conditioned on the hardness ratio is presented. The binned luminosity function and its evolution is determined with a variant of the Page-Carrera method, which is improved to include corrections for absorption and to account for the full probability distribution of photometric redshifts. Parametric models, namely a double power law with luminosity and density evolution (LADE) or luminosity-dependent density evolution (LDDE), are explored using Bayesian inference. We introduce the Watanabe-Akaike information criterion (WAIC) to compare the models and estimate their predictive power. Our data are best described by the LADE model, as hinted by the WAIC indicator. We also explore the recently proposed 15-parameter extended LDDE model and find that this extension is not supported by our data. The strength of our method is that it provides unabsorbed, non-parametric estimates, credible intervals for luminosity function parameters, and a model choice based on predictive power for future data.
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