No Arabic abstract
We present measurements of the evolution of normal-galaxy X-ray emission from $z approx$ 0-7 using local galaxies and galaxy samples in the 6 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S) survey. The majority of the CDF-S galaxies are observed at rest-frame energies above 2 keV, where the emission is expected to be dominated by X-ray binary (XRB) populations; however, hot gas is expected to provide small contributions to the observed- frame < 1 keV emission at $z < 1$. We show that a single scaling relation between X-ray luminosity ($L_{rm X}$) and star-formation rate (SFR) is insufficient for characterizing the average X-ray emission at all redshifts. We establish that scaling relations involving not only SFR, but also stellar mass ($M_star$) and redshift, provide significantly improved characterizations of the average X-ray emission from normal galaxy populations at $z approx$ 0-7. We further provide the first empirical constraints on the redshift evolution of X-ray emission from both low-mass XRB (LMXB) and high-mass XRB (HMXB) populations and their scalings with $M_star$ and SFR, respectively. We find $L_{rm 2-10 keV}({rm LMXB})/M_star propto (1 + z)^{2-3}$ and $L_{rm 2-10 keV}({rm HMXB})$/SFR $propto (1 + z)$, and show that these relations are consistent with XRB population-synthesis model predictions, which attribute the increase in LMXB and HMXB scaling relations with redshift as being due to declining host galaxy stellar ages and metallicities, respectively. We discuss how emission from XRBs could provide an important source of heating to the intergalactic medium in the early Universe, exceeding that of active galactic nuclei.
We systematically analyze X-ray variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the 7~Ms textit{Chandra} Deep Field-South survey. On the longest timescale ($approx~17$ years), we find only weak (if any) dependence of X-ray variability amplitudes on energy bands or obscuration. We use four different power spectral density (PSD) models to fit the anti-correlation between normalized excess variance ($sigma^2_{rm nxv}$) and luminosity, and obtain a best-fit power law index $beta=1.16^{+0.05}_{-0.05}$ for the low-frequency part of AGN PSD. We also divide the whole light curves into 4 epochs in order to inspect the dependence of $sigma^2_{rm nxv}$ on these timescales, finding an overall increasing trend. The analysis of these shorter light curves also infers a $beta$ of $sim 1.3$ that is consistent with the above-derived $beta$, which is larger than the frequently-assumed value of $beta=1$. We then investigate the evolution of $sigma^2_{rm nxv}$. No definitive conclusion is reached due to limited source statistics but, if present, the observed trend goes in the direction of decreasing AGN variability at fixed luminosity toward large redshifts. We also search for transient events and find 6 notable candidate events with our considered criteria. Two of them may be a new type of fast transient events, one of which is reported here for the first time. We therefore estimate a rate of fast outbursts $langledot{N}rangle = 1.0^{+1.1}_{-0.7}times 10^{-3}~rm galaxy^{-1}~yr^{-1}$ and a tidal disruption event~(TDE) rate $langledot{N}_{rm TDE}rangle=8.6^{+8.5}_{-4.9}times 10^{-5}~rm galaxy^{-1}~yr^{-1}$ assuming the other four long outbursts to be TDEs.
We study the X-ray variability properties of distant AGNs in the Chandra Deep Field-South region over 17 years, up to $zsim 4$, and compare them with those predicted by models based on local samples. We use the results of Monte Carlo simulations to account for the biases introduced by the discontinuous sampling and the low-count regime. We confirm that variability is an ubiquitous property of AGNs, with no clear dependence on the density of the environment. The variability properties of high-z AGNs, over different temporal timescales, are most consistent with a Power Spectral Density (PSD) described by a broken (or bending) power-law, similar to nearby AGNs. We confirm the presence of an anti-correlation between luminosity and variability, resulting from the dependence of variability on BH mass and accretion rate. We explore different models, finding that our acceptable solutions predict that BH mass influences the value of the PSD break frequency, while the Eddington ratio $lambda_{Edd}$ affects the PSD break frequency and, possibly, the PSD amplitude as well. We derive the evolution of the average $lambda_{Edd}$ as a function of redshift, finding results in agreement with measurements based on different estimators. The large statistical uncertainties make our results consistent with a constant Eddington ratio, although one of our models suggest a possible increase of $lambda_{Edd}$ with lookback time up to $zsim 2-3$. We conclude that variability is a viable mean to trace the accretion history of supermassive BHs, whose usefulness will increase with future, wide-field/large effective area X-ray missions.
We present X-ray source catalogs for the $approx7$ Ms exposure of the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S), which covers a total area of 484.2 arcmin$^2$. 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 ($K_sle23$) 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 $approx4$ 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 $approx1$ arcmin$^2$ region of $approx1.9times10^{-17}$, $6.4times10^{-18}$, and $2.7times10^{-17}$ 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 $approx50,500$ deg$^{-2}$, and $47%pm4%$ of these sources are AGNs ($approx23,900$ deg$^{-2}$).
We present improved point-source catalogs for the 2 Ms Chandra Deep Field-North (CDF-N) and the 250 ks Extended Chandra Deep Field-South (E-CDF-S), implementing a number of recent improvements in Chandra source-cataloging methodology. For the CDF-N/E-CDF-S, we provide a main catalog that contains 683/1003 X-ray sources detected with wavdetect at a false-positive probability threshold of $10^{-5}$ that also satisfy a binomial-probability source-selection criterion of $P<0.004$/$P<0.002$. Such an approach maximizes the number of reliable sources detected: a total of 196/275 main-catalog sources are new compared to the Alexander et al. (2003) CDF-N/Lehmer et al. (2005) E-CDF-S main catalogs. We also provide CDF-N/E-CDF-S supplementary catalogs that consist of 72/56 sources detected at the same wavdetect threshold and having $P$ of $0.004-0.1$/$0.002-0.1$ and $K_sle22.9/K_sle22.3$ mag counterparts. For all $approx1800$ CDF-N and E-CDF-S sources, including the $approx500$ newly detected ones (these being generally fainter and more obscured), we determine X-ray source positions utilizing centroid and matched-filter techniques; we also provide multiwavelength identifications, apparent magnitudes of counterparts, spectroscopic and/or photometric redshifts, basic source classifications, and estimates of observed AGN and galaxy source densities around respective field centers. Simulations show that both the CDF-N and E-CDF-S main catalogs are highly reliable and reasonably complete. Background and sensitivity analyses indicate that the on-axis mean flux limits reached represent a factor of $approx1.5-2.0$ improvement over the previous CDF-N and E-CDF-S limits. We make our data products publicly available.
[abridged] We present point-source catalogs for the 4Ms Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S), which is the deepest Chandra survey to date and covers an area of 464.5 arcmin^2. We provide a main source catalog, which contains 740 X-ray point sources that are detected with wavdetect at a false-positive probability threshold of 1E-5 and also satisfy a binomial-probability source-selection criterion of P<0.004; this approach is designed to maximize the number of reliable sources detected. A total of 300 main-catalog sources are new compared to the previous 2Ms CDF-S main-catalog sources. We also provide a supplementary catalog, which consists of 36 sources that are detected with wavdetect at 1E-5, satisfy 0.004< P<0.1, and have an optical counterpart with R<24. Multiwavelength identifications, basic optical/infrared/radio photometry, and spectroscopic/photometric redshifts are provided for the X-ray sources. Basic analyses of the X-ray and multiwavelength properties of the sources indicate that >75% of the main-catalog sources are AGNs; of the 300 new main-catalog sources, about 35% are likely normal and starburst galaxies, reflecting the rise of normal and starburst galaxies at the very faint flux levels uniquely accessible to the 4Ms CDF-S. Near the center of the 4Ms CDF-S, the observed AGN and galaxy source densities have reached ~9800 and 6900 per square degree, respectively. The 4 Ms CDF-S reaches on-axis flux limits of ~9.1E-18 and 5.5E-17 erg/cm^2/s for the soft and hard bands, respectively. An increase in the CDF-S exposure by a factor of ~2-2.5 would provide further significant gains and probe key unexplored discovery space.