The ionising continuum from active galactic nuclei (AGN) is fundamental for interpreting their broad emission lines and understanding their impact on the surrounding gas. Furthermore, it provides hints on how matter accretes onto supermassive black h
oles. Using HSTs Wide Field Camera 3 we have constructed the first stacked ultraviolet (rest-frame wavelengths 600-2500AA) spectrum of 53 luminous quasars at z=2.4, with a state-of-the-art correction for the intervening Lyman forest and Lyman continuum absorption. The continuum slope ($f_ u propto u^{alpha_ u}$) of the full sample shows a break at ~912AA with spectral index $alpha_ u=-0.61pm0.01$ at $lambda>912$AA and a softening at shorter wavelengths ($alpha_ u=-1.70 pm 0.61$ at $lambdaleq 912$AA). Our analysis proves that a proper intergalactic medium absorption correction is required to establish the intrinsic continuum emission of quasars. We interpret our average ultraviolet spectrum in the context of photoionisation, accretion disk models, and quasar contribution to the ultraviolet background. We find that observed broad line ratios are consistent with those predicted assuming an ionising slope of $alpha_mathrm{ion}=$-2.0, similar to the observed ionising spectrum in the same wavelength range. The continuum break and softening are consistent with accretion disk plus X-ray corona models when black hole spin is taken into account. Our spectral energy distribution yields a 30% increase to previous estimates of the specific quasar emissivity, such that quasars may contribute significantly to the total specific Lyman limit emissivity estimated from the Ly$alpha$ forest at z<3.2.
Bolometric luminosities and Eddington ratios of both X-ray selected broad-line (Type-1) and narrow-line (Type-2) AGN from the XMM-Newton survey in the COSMOS field are presented. The sample is composed by 929 AGN (382 Type-1 AGN and 547 Type-2 AGN) a
nd it covers a wide range of redshifts, X-ray luminosities and absorbing column densities. About 65% of the sources are spectroscopically identified as either Type-1 or Type-2 AGN (83% and 52% respectively), while accurate photometric redshifts are available for the rest of the sample. The study of such a large sample of X-ray selected AGN with a high quality multi-wavelength coverage from the far-infrared (now with the inclusion of Herschel data at 100 micron and 160 micron) to the optical-UV allows us to obtain accurate estimates of bolometric luminosities, bolometric corrections and Eddington ratios. The kbol-Lbol relations derived in the present work are calibrated for the first time against a sizable AGN sample, and rely on observed redshifts, X-ray luminosities and column density distributions. We find that kbol is significantly lower at high Lbol with respect to previous estimates by Marconi et al. (2004) and Hopkins et al. (2007). Black hole masses and Eddington ratios are available for 170 Type-1 AGN, while black hole masses for Type-2 AGN are computed for 481 objects using the black hole mass-stellar mass relation and the morphological information. We confirm a trend between kbol and lambda_Edd, with lower hard X-ray bolometric corrections at lower Eddington ratios for both Type-1 and Type-2 AGN. We find that, on average, Eddington ratio increases with redshift for all Types of AGN at any given Mbh, while no clear evolution with redshift is seen at any given Lbol.
We present a study of the multi-wavelength properties, from the mid-infrared to the hard X-rays, of a sample of 255 spectroscopically identified X-ray selected Type-2 AGN from the XMM-COSMOS survey. Most of them are obscured the X-ray absorbing colum
n density is determined by either X-ray spectral analyses (for the 45% of the sample), or from hardness ratios. Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) are computed for all sources in the sample. The average SEDs in the optical band is dominated by the host-galaxy light, especially at low X-ray luminosities and redshifts. There is also a trend between X-ray and mid-infrared luminosity: the AGN contribution in the infrared is higher at higher X-ray luminosities. We calculate bolometric luminosities, bolometric corrections, stellar masses and star formation rates (SFRs) for these sources using a multi-component modeling to properly disentangle the emission associated to stellar light from that due to black hole accretion. For 90% of the sample we also have the morphological classifications obtained with an upgraded version of the Zurich Estimator of Structural Types (ZEST+). We find that on average Type-2 AGN have lower bolometric corrections than Type-1 AGN. Moreover, we confirm that the morphologies of AGN host-galaxies indicate that there is a preference for these Type-2 AGN to be hosted in bulge-dominated galaxies with stellar masses greater than 10^10 solar masses.
