ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Physics, Inst. for Particle Physics and Astrophysics
ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. Physics; Tel Aviv Univ. (Israel). School of Physics and Astronomy
Kyoto Univ. (Japan). Dept. of Astronomy
Eureka Scientific, Oakland, CA (United States)
The Univ. of Western Australia, Crawley (Australia). International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
Univ. Diego Portales, Santiago (Chile). Núcleo de Astronomía de la Facultad de Ingeniería; Peking Univ., Beijing (China). Kavli Inst. for Astronomy and Astrophysics
ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Physics, Inst. for Particle Physics and Astrophysics; Modulos AG, Zurich (Switzerland)
Tohoku Univ., Sendai (Japan). Frontier Research Inst. for Interdisciplinary Sciences, and Astronomical Inst.
U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. (United States)
California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab.
Kapteyn Astronomical Inst., Groningen (Netherlands); Harvard Univ., and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA (United States). BHI & Clay Fellow
Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Astronomy, and Joint Space-Science Inst.
Yale University, New Haven, CT (United States). Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics Dept.
Pontificia Univ. Católica de Chile, Santiago (Chile). Inst. de Astrofísica, Facultad de Física
European Southern Observatory, Santiago (Chile)
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Cahill Center for Astrophysics
Univ. College London, (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Astrophysics Group
In this paper, we present a multiwavelength analysis of 28 of the most luminous low-redshift narrow-line, ultra-hard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) drawn from the 70-month Swift/BAT all-sky survey, with bolometric luminosities of $$\log (L_{\rm bol} /{\rm erg\, s}^{-1}) \gtrsim 45.25$$. The broad goal of our study is to determine whether these objects have any distinctive properties, potentially setting them aside from lower luminosity obscured AGN in the local Universe. Our analysis relies on the first data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR1) and on dedicated observations with the VLT, Palomar, and Keck observatories. We find that the vast majority of our sources agree with commonly used AGN selection criteria which are based on emission line ratios and on mid-infrared colours. Our AGN are pre-dominantly hosted in massive galaxies (9.8 ≲ log (M*/M⊙) ≲ 11.7); based on visual inspection of archival optical images, they appear to be mostly ellipticals. Otherwise, they do not have distinctive properties. Their radio luminosities, determined from publicly available survey data, show a large spread of almost four orders of magnitude – much broader than what is found for lower X-ray luminosity obscured AGN in BASS. Moreover, our sample shows no preferred combination of black hole masses (MBH) and/or Eddington ratio (λEdd, covering 7.5 ≲ log (MBH/M⊙) ≲ 10.3 and 0.01 ≲ λEdd ≲ 1. Based on the distribution of our sources in the λEdd-NH plane, we conclude that our sample is consistent with a scenario where the amount of obscuring material along the line of sight is determined by radiation pressure exerted by the AGN on the dusty circumnuclear gas.
Bär, Rudolf E., et al. "BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey – XIII. The nature of the most luminous obscured AGN in the low-redshift universe." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 489, no. 3, Aug. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2309
Bär, Rudolf E., Trakhtenbrot, Benny, Oh, Kyuseok, Koss, Michael J., Wong, O. Ivy, Ricci, Claudio, Schawinski, Kevin, Weigel, Anna K., Sartori, Lia F., Ichikawa, Kohei, Secrest, Nathan J., Stern, Daniel, Pacucci, Fabio, Mushotzky, Richard, Powell, Meredith C., Ricci, Federica, Sani, Eleonora, Smith, Krista L., ... Urry, C. Megan (2019). BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey – XIII. The nature of the most luminous obscured AGN in the low-redshift universe. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 489(3). https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2309
Bär, Rudolf E., Trakhtenbrot, Benny, Oh, Kyuseok, et al., "BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey – XIII. The nature of the most luminous obscured AGN in the low-redshift universe," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 489, no. 3 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2309
@article{osti_1574853,
author = {Bär, Rudolf E. and Trakhtenbrot, Benny and Oh, Kyuseok and Koss, Michael J. and Wong, O. Ivy and Ricci, Claudio and Schawinski, Kevin and Weigel, Anna K. and Sartori, Lia F. and Ichikawa, Kohei and others},
title = {BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey – XIII. The nature of the most luminous obscured AGN in the low-redshift universe},
annote = {In this paper, we present a multiwavelength analysis of 28 of the most luminous low-redshift narrow-line, ultra-hard X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) drawn from the 70-month Swift/BAT all-sky survey, with bolometric luminosities of $\log (L_{\rm bol} /{\rm erg\, s}^{-1}) \gtrsim 45.25$. The broad goal of our study is to determine whether these objects have any distinctive properties, potentially setting them aside from lower luminosity obscured AGN in the local Universe. Our analysis relies on the first data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR1) and on dedicated observations with the VLT, Palomar, and Keck observatories. We find that the vast majority of our sources agree with commonly used AGN selection criteria which are based on emission line ratios and on mid-infrared colours. Our AGN are pre-dominantly hosted in massive galaxies (9.8 ≲ log (M*/M⊙) ≲ 11.7); based on visual inspection of archival optical images, they appear to be mostly ellipticals. Otherwise, they do not have distinctive properties. Their radio luminosities, determined from publicly available survey data, show a large spread of almost four orders of magnitude – much broader than what is found for lower X-ray luminosity obscured AGN in BASS. Moreover, our sample shows no preferred combination of black hole masses (MBH) and/or Eddington ratio (λEdd, covering 7.5 ≲ log (MBH/M⊙) ≲ 10.3 and 0.01 ≲ λEdd ≲ 1. Based on the distribution of our sources in the λEdd-NH plane, we conclude that our sample is consistent with a scenario where the amount of obscuring material along the line of sight is determined by radiation pressure exerted by the AGN on the dusty circumnuclear gas.},
doi = {10.1093/mnras/stz2309},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1574853},
journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
issn = {ISSN 0035-8711},
number = {3},
volume = {489},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Royal Astronomical Society},
year = {2019},
month = {08}}
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1574853
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 489; ISSN 0035-8711