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Register a new userComparison of the spatial and the angular clustering of X-ray AGN
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Manolis Plionis Professor
Publication date
2016
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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The angular correlation function is a powerful tool for deriving the clustering properties of AGN and hence the mass of the corresponding dark matter halos in which they reside. However, studies based on the application of the angular correlation function on X-ray samples, yield results apparently inconsistent with those based on the direct estimation of the spatial correlation function. The goal of the present paper is to attempt to investigate this issue by analysing a well defined sample. To this end we use the hard-band (2-10 keV) X-ray selected sources of the Chandra AEGIS fields, chosen because of the availability of accurately derived flux sensitivity maps. In particular we use the 186 hard-band sources with spectroscopic redshifts in the range z=0.3-1.3, a range selected in order to contain the bulk of the AGN while minimizing the contribution of unknown clustering and luminosity evolution from very high redshifts. Using the projected spatial auto-correlation function, we derive a clustering comoving length of 5.4+-1.0 Mpc (for gamma=1.8), consistent with results in the literature. We further derive the angular correlation function and the corresponding spatial clustering length using the Limbers inversion equation and a novel parametrization of the clustering evolution model that also takes into account the bias evolution of the host dark matter halo. The Limbers inverted spatial comoving clustering length of 5.5+-1.2 Mpc at a median redshift of z~0.75, matches the directly measured one, from the spatial correlation function analysis, but for a significant non-linear contribution to the growing mode of perturbations, estimated independently from literature results of x_0 at different redshifts. Therefore, using this sample of X-ray AGN and our clustering evolution parametrization we have found an excellent consistency between the angular and spatial clustering analysis.
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We constrain the number density and evolution of Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). In the local Universe we use the wide area surveys from the Swift and INTEGRAL satellites, while for high redshifts we explore candidate selections based on a combination of X-ray and mid-IR parameters. We find a significantly lower space density of Compton-thick AGN in the local Universe than expected from published AGN population synthesis models to explain the X-ray background. This can be explained by the numerous degeneracies in the parameters of those models; we use the high-energy surveys described here to remove those degeneracies. We show that only direct observations of CT AGN can currently constrain the number of heavily-obscured supermassive black holes. At high redshift, the inclusion of IR-selected Compton-thick AGN candidates leads to a much higher space density, implying (a) a different (steeper) evolution for these sources compared to less-obscured AGN, (b) that the IR selection includes a large number of interlopers, and/or (c) that there is a large number of reflection-dominated AGN missed in the INTEGRAL and Swift observations. The contribution of CT AGN to the X-ray background is small, ~9%, with a comparable contribution to the total cosmic accretion, unless reflection-dominated CT AGN significantly outnumber transmission-dominated CT AGN, in which case their contribution can be much higher. Using estimates derived here for the accretion luminosity over cosmic time we estimate the local mass density in supermassive black holes and find a good agreement with available constraints for an accretion efficiency of ~10%. Transmission-dominated CT AGN contribute only ~8% to total black hole growth.
We calculate the angular correlation function for a sample of 170,000 AGN extracted from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) catalog, selected to have red mid-IR colors (W1 - W2 > 0.8) and 4.6 micron flux densities brighter than 0.14 mJy). The sample is expected to be >90% reliable at identifying AGN, and to have a mean redshift of z=1.1. In total, the angular clustering of WISE-AGN is roughly similar to that of optical AGN. We cross-match these objects with the photometric SDSS catalog and distinguish obscured sources with (r - W2) > 6 from bluer, unobscured AGN. Obscured sources present a higher clustering signal than unobscured sources. Since the host galaxy morphologies of obscured AGN are not typical red sequence elliptical galaxies and show disks in many cases, it is unlikely that the increased clustering strength of the obscured population is driven by a host galaxy segregation bias. By using relatively complete redshift distributions from the COSMOS survey, we find obscured sources at mean redshift z=0.9 have a bias of b = 2.9 pm 0.6 and are hosted in dark matter halos with a typical mass of log(M/M_odot)~13.5. In contrast, unobscured AGN at z~1.1 have a bias of b = 1.6 pm 0.6 and inhabit halos of log(M/M_odot)~12.4. These findings suggest that obscured AGN inhabit denser environments than unobscured AGN, and are difficult to reconcile with the simplest AGN unification models, where obscuration is driven solely by orientation.
We study the spatial clustering of 538 X-ray selected AGN in the 2 deg^2 XMM-COSMOS field that are spectroscopically identified to I_{AB}<23 and span the redshift range z=0.2-3.0. The median redshift and luminosity of the sample are z = 0.98 and L_{0.5-10}=6.3 x 10^{43} erg/s, respectively. A strong clustering signal is detected at ~18sigma level, which is the most significant measurement obtained to date for clustering of X-ray selected AGN. By fitting the projected correlation function w(r_p) with a power law on scales of r_p=0.3-40 Mpc/h, we derive a best fit comoving correlation length of r_0 = 8.6 +- 0.5 Mpc/h and slope of gamma=1.88 +- 0.07 (Poissonian errors; bootstrap errors are about a factor of 2 larger). An excess signal is observed in the range r_p~5-15 Mpc/h, which is due to a large scale structure at z ~ 0.36 containing about 40 AGN. When removing the z ~ 0.36 structure, or computing w(r_p) in a narrower range around the peak of the redshift distribution (e.g. z=0.4-1.6), the correlation length decreases to r_0 ~ 5-6 Mpc/h, which is consistent with that observed for bright optical QSOs at the same redshift. We investigate the clustering properties of obscured and unobscured AGN separately. Within the statistical uncertainties, we do not find evidence that AGN with broad optical lines (BLAGN) cluster differently from AGN without broad optical lines (non-BLAGN). The correlation length measured for XMM-COSMOS AGN at z~1 is similar to that of massive galaxies (stellar mass M_*> 3 x 10^{10} M_sun) at the same redshift. This suggests that AGN at z~1 are preferentially hosted by massive galaxies, as observed both in the local and in the distant (z~2) Universe. (shortened)
In this paper we present the two-point angular correlation function of the X-ray source population of 1063 XMM-Newton observations at high Galactic latitudes, comprising up to ~30000 sources over a sky area of 125.5 sq. deg, in three energy bands: 0.5-2 (soft), 2-10 (hard), and 4.5-10 (ultrahard) keV. We have measured the angular clustering of our survey and find significant positive clustering signals in the soft and hard bands, and a marginal clustering detection in the ultrahard band. We find dependency of the clustering strength on the flux limit and no significant differences in the clustering properties between sources with high hardness ratios and those with low hardness ratios. Our results show that obscured and unobscured objects share similar clustering properties and therefore they both reside in similar environments, in agreement with the unified model of AGN. We deprojected the angular clustering parameters via Limbers equation to compute their typical spatial lengths. From that we have inferred the typical mass of the dark matter haloes in which AGN at redshifts of ~1 are embedded. The short AGN lifetimes derived suggest that AGN activity might be a transient phase that can be experienced several times by a large fraction of galaxies throughout their lives.
We investigate the optical morphologies of candidate active galaxies identified at radio, X-ray, and mid-infrared wavelengths. We use the Advanced Camera for Surveys General Catalog (ACS-GC) to identify 372, 1360, and 1238 AGN host galaxies from the VLA, XMM-Newton and Spitzer Space Telescope observations of the COSMOS field, respectively. We investigate both quantitative (GALFIT) and qualitative (visual) morphologies of these AGN host galaxies, split by brightness in their selection band. We find that the radio-selected AGN are most distinct, with a very low incidence of having unresolved optical morphologies and a high incidence of being hosted by early-type galaxies. In comparison to X-ray selected AGN, mid-IR selected AGN have a slightly higher incidence of being hosted by disk galaxies. These morphological results conform with the results of Hickox et al. 2009 who studied the colors and large-scale clustering of AGN, and found a general association of radio-selected AGN with ``red sequence galaxies, mid-IR selected AGN with ``blue cloud galaxies, and X-ray selected AGN straddling these samples in the ``green valley. In the general scenario where AGN activity marks and regulates the transition from late-type disk galaxies into massive elliptical galaxies, this work suggests that the earlier stages are most evident as mid-IR selected AGNs. Mid-IR emission is less susceptible to absorption than the relatively soft X-rays probed by XMM-Newton, which are seen at later stages in the transition. Radio-selected AGN are then typically associated with minor bursts of activity in the most massive galaxies.
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