Active galactic nucleus X-ray variability in the XMM-COSMOS survey
- Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, D-85748 Garching (Germany)
- Institute for Astronomy, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822-1839 (United States)
- INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy)
- Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma Via Frascati 33, I-00040, Monte Porzio Catone (Italy)
- Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany)
- Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583 (Japan)
- University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universitá di Bologna, viale Berti Pichat 6/2, I-40127 Bologna (Italy)
We used the observations carried out by XMM in the COSMOS field over 3.5 yr to study the long term variability of a large sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) (638 sources) in a wide range of redshifts (0.1 < z < 3.5) and X-ray luminosities (10{sup 41} < L {sub 0.5-10} <10{sup 45.5}). Both a simple statistical method to assess the significance of variability and the Normalized Excess Variance (σ{sub rms}{sup 2}) parameter were used to obtain a quantitative measurement of the variability. Variability is found to be prevalent in most AGNs, whenever we have good statistics to measure it, and no significant differences between type 1 and type 2 AGNs were found. A flat (slope –0.23 ± 0.03) anti-correlation between σ{sub rms}{sup 2} and X-ray luminosity is found when all significantly variable sources are considered together. When divided into three redshift bins, the anti-correlation becomes stronger and evolving with z, with higher redshift AGNs being more variable. We prove, however, that this effect is due to the pre-selection of variable sources: when considering all of the sources with an available σ{sub rms}{sup 2} measurement, the evolution in redshift disappears. For the first time, we were also able to study long term X-ray variability as a function of M {sub BH} and Eddington ratio for a large sample of AGNs spanning a wide range of redshifts. An anti-correlation between σ{sub rms}{sup 2} and M {sub BH} is found, with the same slope of anti-correlation between σ{sub rms}{sup 2} and X-ray luminosity, suggesting that the latter may be a by-product of the former. No clear correlation is found between σ{sub rms}{sup 2} and the Eddington ratio in our sample. Finally, no correlation is found between the X-ray σ{sub rms}{sup 2} and optical variability.
- OSTI ID:
- 22348089
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 781, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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