An accurate census of the active galactic nuclei (AGN) is a key step in investigating the nature of the correlation between the growth and evolution of super massive black holes and galaxy evolution. X-ray surveys provide one of the most efficient ways of selecting AGN.
The supermassive black holes at the center of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are surrounded by obscuring matter that can block nuclear radiation. Depending on the amount of blocked radiation, the flux from the AGN can be too faint to be detected by currently flying hard X-ray (above 15keV) missions. At these energies only ~1% of the intensity of the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) can be resolved into point-like sources that are AGNs. In this work, we address the question of undetected sources contributing to the CXB with a very sensitive and new hard X-ray survey: the Swift-INTEGRAL X-ray (SIX) survey, which is obtained with the new approach of combining the Swift/BAT and INTEGRAL/IBIS X-ray observations. We merge the observations of both missions, which enhances the exposure time and reduces systematic uncertainties. As a result, we obtain a new survey over a wide sky area of 6200deg^2^ that is more sensitive than the surveys of Swift/BAT or INTEGRAL/IBIS alone. Our sample comprises 113 sources: 86 AGNs (Seyfert-like and blazars), 5 galaxies, 2 clusters of galaxies, 3 Galactic sources, 3 previously detected unidentified X-ray sources, and 14 unidentified sources. The scientific outcome from the study of the sample has been properly addressed to study the evolution of AGNs at redshift below 0.4.
We present the results from the timing and spectral study of Mrk 421 based mainly on the Swift data in the X-ray energy range obtained during the time interval 2015 December-2018 April. The most extreme X-ray flaring activity on long-term, daily, and intraday timescales was observed during the 2 month period that started in 2017 December, when the 0.3-10keV flux exceeded a level of 5x10^-9^erg/cm^2^/s, recorded only twice previously. While the TeV- band and X-ray variabilities were mostly correlated, the source often varied in a complex manner in the MeV-GeV and radio-UV energy ranges, indicating that the multifrequency emission of Mrk 421 could not always be generated in a single zone. The longer-term flares at X-rays and {gamma}-rays showed a lognormal character, possibly indicating a variability imprint of the accretion disk onto the jet. A vast majority of the 0.3-10keV spectra were consistent with the log-parabolic model, showing relatively low spectral curvature and correlations between the different spectral parameters, predicted in the case of the first- and second-order Fermi processes. The position of the synchrotron spectral energy distribution peak showed an extreme variability on diverse timescales between the energies Ep<0.1 and >15keV, with 15% of the spectra peaking at the hard X-ray, and was related to the peak height as S^p^{propto}E_p_^{alpha}^ with {alpha}~0.6, which is expected for the transition from Kraichnan-type turbulence into the "hard sphere" one. The 0.3-300GeV spectra showed features of the hadronic contribution, jet-star interaction, and upscatter in the Klein-Nishina regime in different time intervals.
Swift intensive accretion disk reverberation mapping of four AGN yielded light curves sampled ~200-350 times in 0.3-10keV X-ray and six UV/optical bands. Uniform reduction and cross-correlation analysis of these data sets yields three main results: (1) The X-ray/UV correlations are much weaker than those within the UV/optical, posing severe problems for the lamp-post reprocessing model in which variations in a central X-ray corona drive and power those in the surrounding accretion disk. (2) The UV/optical interband lags are generally consistent with {tau}{propto}{lambda}^4/3^ as predicted by the centrally illuminated thin accretion disk model. While the average interband lags are somewhat larger than predicted, these results alone are not inconsistent with the thin disk model given the large systematic uncertainties involved. (3) The one exception is the U band lags, which are on average a factor of ~2.2 larger than predicted from the surrounding band data and fits. This excess appears to be due to diffuse continuum emission from the broad-line region (BLR). The precise mixing of disk and BLR components cannot be determined from these data alone. The lags in different AGN appear to scale with mass or luminosity. We also find that there are systematic differences between the uncertainties derived by Just Another Vehicle for Estimating Lags In Nuclei (JAVELIN) versus more standard lag measurement techniques, with JAVELIN reporting smaller uncertainties by a factor of 2.5 on average. In order to be conservative only standard techniques were used in the analyses reported herein.
We have analyzed all the archival X-ray data of 134 unidentified (unID) gamma-ray sources listed in the first Fermi/LAT (1FGL) catalog and subsequently followed up by the Swift/XRT. We constructed the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) from radio to gamma-rays for each X-ray source detected, and tried to pick up unique objects that display anomalous spectral signatures. In these analyses, we target all the 1FGL unID sources, using updated data from the second Fermi/LAT (2FGL) catalog on the Large Area Telescope (LAT) position and spectra. We found several potentially interesting objects, particularly three sources, 1FGL J0022.2-1850, 1FGL J0038.0+1236, and 1FGL J0157.0-5259, which were then more deeply observed with Suzaku as a part of an AO-7 program in 2012. We successfully detected an X-ray counterpart for each source whose X-ray spectra were well fitted by a single power-law function. The positional coincidence with a bright radio counterpart (currently identified as an active galactic nucleus, AGN) in the 2FGL error circles suggests these sources are definitely the X-ray emission from the same AGN, but their SEDs show a wide variety of behavior. In particular, the SED of 1FGL J0038.0+1236 is not easily explained by conventional emission models of blazars. The source 1FGL J0022.2-1850 may be in a transition state between a low-frequency peaked and a high-frequency peaked BL Lac object, and 1FGL J0157.0-5259 could be a rare kind of extreme blazar.
We report a moderate-depth (70ks), contiguous 0.7deg^2^ Chandra survey in the Lockman Hole Field of the Spitzer/SWIRE Legacy Survey coincident with a completed, ultra-deep VLA survey with deep optical and near-infrared imaging in-hand. The primary motivation is to distinguish starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), including the significant, highly obscured (logN_H_>23) subset. Chandra has detected 775 X-ray sources to a limiting broadband (0.3-8keV) flux ~4x10^-16^erg/cm^2^/s. We present the X-ray catalog, fluxes, hardness ratios, and multi-wavelength fluxes. The logN versus logS agrees with those of previous surveys covering similar flux ranges. The Chandra and Spitzer flux limits are well matched: 771 (99%) of the X-ray sources have infrared (IR) or optical counterparts, and 333 have MIPS 24um detections. There are four optical-only X-ray sources and four with no visible optical/IR counterpart. The very deep (~2.7uJy rms) VLA data yield 251 (>4{sigma}) radio counterparts, 44% of the X-ray sources in the field. More than 40% of the X-ray sources in the VLA field are radio-loud using the classical definition, RL. The majority of these are red and relatively faint in the optical so that the use of RL to select those AGNs with the strongest radio emission becomes questionable. Using the 24um to radio flux ratio (q_24_) instead results in 13 of the 147 AGNs with sufficient data being classified as radio-loud, in good agreement with the ~10% expected for broad-lined AGNs based on optical surveys. We conclude that q_24_ is a more reliable indicator of radio-loudness. Use of RL should be confined to the optically selected type 1 AGN.
This paper is the second part of a work investigating the properties of dusty tori in active galactic nuclei (AGN) by means of multicomponent spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting. It focuses on low-luminosity, low-redshift (z<=0.25) AGN selected among emission line galaxies in the overlapping regions between Spitzer Wide-area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4 as well as X-ray, radio and mid-infrared selected type 2 AGN samples from the literature. The available multiband photometry covers the spectral range from the u band up to 160um. Using a standard chi^2^ minimization, the observed SED of each object is fit to a set of multicomponent models comprising a stellar component, a high optical depth (tau_9.7_>=1.0) torus and cold emission from a starburst (SB). The torus components assigned to the majority of the objects were those of the highest optical depth of our grid of models (tau_9.7_=10.0). The contribution of the various components (stars, torus, SB) is reflected in the position of the objects on the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) colour diagram, with star-, torus- and SB-dominated objects occupying specific areas of the diagrams and composite objects lying in between.
We describe deep radio imaging at 1.4GHz of the 1.3-deg^2^ Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field (SXDF), made with the Very Large Array in B and C configurations. We present a radio map of the entire field, and a catalogue of 505 sources covering 0.8deg^2^ to a peak flux density limit of 100uJy. Robust optical identifications are provided for 90 per cent of the sources, and suggested identifications are presented for all but 14 (of which seven are optically blank, and seven are close to bright contaminating objects). We show that the optical properties of the radio sources do not change with flux density, suggesting that active galactic nuclei (AGN) continue to contribute significantly at faint flux densities. We test this assertion by cross-correlating our radio catalogue with the X-ray source catalogue and conclude that radio-quiet AGN become a significant population at flux densities below 300uJy, and may dominate the population responsible for the flattening of the radio source counts if a significant fraction of them are Compton-thick.
We revisit the concept of a blazar sequence that relates the synchrotron peak frequency ({nu}_peak_) in blazars with synchrotron peak luminosity (L_peak_, in {nu}L_{nu}_) using a large sample of radio-loud active galactic nuclei. We present observational evidence that the blazar sequence is formed from two populations in the synchrotron {nu}_peak_-L_peak_ plane, each forming an upper edge to an envelope of progressively misaligned blazars, and connecting to an adjacent group of radio galaxies having jets viewed at much larger angles to the line of sight. When binned by jet kinetic power (L_kin_; as measured through a scaling relationship with extended radio power), we find that radio core dominance decreases with decreasing synchrotron L_peak_, revealing that sources in the envelope are generally more misaligned. We find population-based evidence of velocity gradients in jets at low kinetic powers (~10^42^-10^44.5^erg/s), corresponding to Fanaroff-Riley (FR) I radio galaxies and most BL Lac objects. These low jet power "weak-jet" sources, thought to exhibit radiatively inefficient accretion, are distinguished from the population of non-decelerating, low synchrotron-peaking (LSP) blazars and FR II radio galaxies ("strong" jets) which are thought to exhibit radiatively efficient accretion. The two-population interpretation explains the apparent contradiction of the existence of highly core-dominated, low-power blazars at both low and high synchrotron peak frequencies, and further implies that most intermediate synchrotron peak sources are not intermediate in intrinsic jet power between LSP and high synchrotron-peaking (HSP) sources, but are more misaligned versions of HSP sources with similar jet powers.
The blazar sequence is a scenario in which the bolometric luminosity of the blazar governs the appearance of its spectral energy distribution. The most prominent result is the significant negative correlation between the synchrotron peak frequencies and the synchrotron peak luminosities of the blazar population. Observational studies of the blazar sequence have, in general, neglected the effect of Doppler boosting. We study the dependence of both the synchrotron peak frequency and luminosity with Doppler-corrected quantities. We determine the spectral energy distributions of 135 radio-bright AGN and find the best-fit parabolic function for the distribution to quantify their synchrotron emission. The corresponding measurements of synchrotron peak luminosities and frequencies are Doppler-corrected with a new set of Doppler factors calculated from variability data. The relevant correlations for the blazar sequence are determined for these intrinsic quantities.
