OBSCURATION BY GAS AND DUST IN LUMINOUS QUASARS
- Physics and Astronomy Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder Laboratory, Hanover, NH 03755 (United States)
We explore the connection between absorption by neutral gas and extinction by dust in mid-infrared (IR) selected luminous quasars. We use a sample of 33 quasars at redshifts 0.7 < z ≲ 3 in the 9 deg{sup 2} Boötes multiwavelength survey field that are selected using Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera colors and are well-detected as luminous X-ray sources (with >150 counts) in Chandra observations. We divide the quasars into dust-obscured and unobscured samples based on their optical to mid-IR color, and measure the neutral hydrogen column density N {sub H} through fitting of the X-ray spectra. We find that all subsets of quasars have consistent power law photon indices Γ ≈ 1.9 that are uncorrelated with N {sub H}. We classify the quasars as gas-absorbed or gas-unabsorbed if N {sub H} > 10{sup 22} cm{sup –2} or N {sub H} < 10{sup 22} cm{sup –2}, respectively. Of 24 dust-unobscured quasars in the sample, only one shows clear evidence for significant intrinsic N {sub H}, while 22 have column densities consistent with N {sub H} < 10{sup 22} cm{sup –2}. In contrast, of the nine dust-obscured quasars, six show evidence for intrinsic gas absorption, and three are consistent with N {sub H} < 10{sup 22} cm{sup –2}. We conclude that dust extinction in IR-selected quasars is strongly correlated with significant gas absorption as determined through X-ray spectral fitting. These results suggest that obscuring gas and dust in quasars are generally co-spatial, and confirm the reliability of simple mid-IR and optical photometric techniques for separating quasars based on obscuration.
- OSTI ID:
- 22365812
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 788, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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