394 research outputs found
A population of intermediate-mass black holes in dwarf starburst galaxies up to redshift=1.5
We study a sample of 50,000 dwarf starburst and late-type galaxies
drawn from the COSMOS survey with the aim of investigating the presence of
nuclear accreting black holes (BHs) as those seed BHs from which supermassive
BHs could grow in the early Universe. We divide the sample into five complete
redshift bins up to and perform an X-ray stacking analysis using the
\textit{Chandra} COSMOS-Legacy survey data. After removing the contribution
from X-ray binaries and hot gas to the stacked X-ray emission, we still find an
X-ray excess in the five redshift bins that can be explained by nuclear
accreting BHs. This X-ray excess is more significant for . At higher
redshifts, these active galactic nuclei could suffer mild obscuration, as
indicated by the analysis of their hardness ratios. The average nuclear X-ray
luminosities in the soft band are in the range 10 erg s.
Assuming that the sources accrete at 1\% the Eddington rate, their BH
masses would be 10 M, thus in the intermediate-mass BH
regime, but their mass would be smaller than the one predicted by the
BH-stellar mass relation. If instead the sources follow the correlation between
BH mass and stellar mass, they would have sub-Eddington accreting rates of
10 and BH masses 1-9 10 M. We thus
conclude that a population of intermediate-mass BHs exists in dwarf starburst
galaxies, at least up to =1.5, though their detection beyond the local
Universe is challenging due to their low luminosity and mild obscuration unless
deep surveys are employed.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, ApJ in pres
Intermediate-mass black holes in dwarf galaxies out to redshift 2.4 in the Chandra COSMOS Legacy Survey
We present a sample of 40 AGN in dwarf galaxies at redshifts
2.4. The galaxies are drawn from the \textit{Chandra} COSMOS-Legacy survey as
having stellar masses M. Most
of the dwarf galaxies are star-forming. After removing the contribution from
star formation to the X-ray emission, the AGN luminosities of the 40 dwarf
galaxies are in the range erg
s. With 12 sources at , our sample constitutes the
highest-redshift discovery of AGN in dwarf galaxies. The record-holder is
cid\_1192, at and with erg
s. One of the dwarf galaxies has
M and is the least massive galaxy found so far to host an AGN. All
the AGN are of type 2 and consistent with hosting intermediate-mass black holes
(BHs) with masses M and typical Eddington
ratios . We also study the evolution, corrected for completeness, of AGN
fraction with stellar mass, X-ray luminosity, and redshift in dwarf galaxies
out to = 0.7. We find that the AGN fraction for M and erg s is
0.4\% for 0.3 and that it decreases with X-ray luminosity and
decreasing stellar mass. Unlike massive galaxies, the AGN fraction seems to
decrease with redshift, suggesting that AGN in dwarf galaxies evolve
differently than those in high-mass galaxies. Mindful of potential caveats, the
results seem to favor a direct collapse formation mechanism for the seed BHs in
the early Universe.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Identifications of Einstein Slew Survey sources
The status of identifications of the Einstien Slew Survey, a bright soft x-ray catalog with 550 new x-ray sources, is discussed. Possible counterparts were found for greater than 95 percent of the Slew Survey based on positional coincidences and color-color diagnostics. The survey will be fully identified via upcoming radio and optical observations
Multiphase gas flows in the nearby Seyfert galaxy ESO428-G14
We present ALMA rest-frame 230 GHz continuum and CO(2-1) line observations of
the nearby Compton-thick Seyfert galaxy ESO428-G14, with angular resolution 0.7
arcsec (78 pc). We detect CO(2-1) emission from spiral arms and a
circum-nuclear ring with 200 pc radius, and from a transverse gas lane with
size of pc, which crosses the nucleus and connects the two portions
the circumnuclear ring. The molecular gas in the host galaxy is distributed in
a rotating disk with intrinsic circular velocity km/s,
inclination deg, and dynamical mass within a radius of kpc. In the inner 100 pc region CO is
distributed in a equatorial bar, whose kinematics is highly perturbed and
consistent with an inflow of gas towards the AGN. This inner CO bar overlaps
with the most obscured, Compton-thick region seen in X-rays. We derive a column
density of in this region,
suggesting that molecular gas may contribute significantly to the AGN
obscuration. We detect a molecular outflow with a total outflow rate , distributed along a bi-conical structure with
size of pc on both sides of the AGN. The bi-conical outflow is also
detected in the emission line at 2.12 m, which traces a warmer
nuclear outflow located within 170 pc from the AGN. This suggests that the
outflow cools with increasing distance from the AGN. We find that the hard
X-ray emitting nuclear region mapped with Chandra is CO-deprived, but filled
with warm molecular gas traced by - thus confirming that the hard
(3-6 keV) continuum and Fe K emission are due to scattering from dense
neutral clouds in the ISM.Comment: Submitted to Ap
Einstein Slew Survey: Data analysis innovations
Several new methods were needed in order to make the Einstein Slew X-ray Sky Survey. The innovations which enabled the Slew Survey to be done are summarized. These methods included experimental approach to large projects, parallel processing on a LAN, percolation source detection, minimum action identifications, and rapid dissemination of the whole data base
Hidden AGNs in Early-Type Galaxies
We present a stacking analysis of the complete sample of Early Type Galaxies
(ETGs) in the \textit{Chandra} COSMOS (C-COSMOS) survey, to explore the nature
of the X-ray luminosity in the redshift and stellar luminosity ranges
and {10}^{9}. Using established
scaling relations, we subtract the contribution of X-ray binary populations, to
estimate the combined emission of hot ISM and AGN. To discriminate between the
relative importance of these two components, we (1) compare our results with
the relation observed in the local universe for
hot gaseous halos emission in ETGs, and (2) evaluate the spectral signature of
each stacked bin. We find two regimes where the non-stellar X-ray emission is
hard, consisten t with AGN emission. First, there is evidence of hard, absorbed
X-ray emission in stacked bins including relatively high z () ETGs
with average high X-ray luminosity (L_{X-LMXB}\gtrsim 6\times{10}^{42}\mbox{
erg}/\mbox{s}). These luminosities are consistent with the presence ofhighly
absorbed "hidden" AGNs in these ETGs, which are not visible in their optical-IR
spectra and spectral energy distributions. Second, confirming the early
indication from our C-COSMOS study of X-ray detected ETGs, we find
significantly enhanced X-ray luminoaity in lower stellar mass ETGs
(L_K\lesssim{10}^{11}L_{\astrosun}), relative to the local
relation. The stacked spectra of these ETGs also
suggest X-ray emission harder than expected from gaseous hot halos. This
emission is consistent with inefficient accretion
onto M_{BH}\sim
{10}^{6}-{10}^{8}\,M_{\astrosun}.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publications on Ap
Origin of the scatter in the X-ray luminosity of early-type galaxies observed with ROSAT
Statistical properties of X-ray luminosity and temperature are studied for 52
early-type galaxies based on the ROSAT PSPC data. All of the X-ray luminous
galaxies show largely extended emission with a radius of a few times of
10, while X-ray faint galaxies do not show such a component. This leads to
a division of early-type galaxies into two categories: X-ray extended and X-ray
compact galaxies. Except for a few galaxies in dense cluster environments, the
luminosity and temperature of X-ray compact galaxies are well explained by a
kinematical heating of the gas supplied by stellar mass loss. In contrast,
X-ray extended galaxies indicate large scatter in the X-ray luminosity. We
discuss that X-ray extended galaxies are the central objects of large potential
structures, and the presence and absence of this potential is the main origin
of the large scatter in the X-ray luminosity.Comment: 35 pages, including 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap
Early-type galaxies in the Chandra COSMOS Survey
We study a sample of 69 X-ray detected Early Type Galaxies (ETGs), selected
from the Chandra COSMOS survey, to explore the relation between the X-ray
luminosity of hot gaseous halos (L_X, gas) and the integrated stellar
luminosity (L_K) of the galaxies, in a range of redshift extending out to
z=1.5. In the local universe a tight steep relationship has been stablished
between these two quantities (L_X,gas~ L_K^4.5) suggesting the presence of
largely virialized halos in X-ray luminous systems. We use well established
relations from the study of local universe ETGs, together with the expected
evolution of the X-ray emission, to subtract the contribution of low mass X-ray
binary populations (LMXBs) from the X-ray luminosity of our sample. Our
selection minimizes the presence of active galactic nuclei (AGN), yielding a
sample representative of normal passive COSMOS ETGs; therefore the resulting
luminosity should be representative of gaseous halos, although we cannot
exclude other sources such as obscured AGN, or enhanced X-ray emission
connected with embedded star formation in the higher z galaxies. We find that
most of the galaxies with estimated L_X<10^42 erg/s and z<0.55 follow the
L_X,gas- L_K relation of local universe ETGs. For these galaxies, the
gravitational mass can be estimated with a certain degree of confidence from
the local virial relation. However, the more luminous (10^42<L_X<10^43.5 erg/s)
and distant galaxies present significantly larger scatter; these galaxies also
tend to have younger stellar ages. The divergence from the local L_X,gas - L_K
relation in these galaxies implies significantly enhanced X-ray emission, up to
a factor of 100 larger than predicted from the local relation. We discuss the
implications of this result for the presence of hidden AGN, and the evolution
of hot halos, in the presence of nuclear and star formation feedback.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication on ApJ on May 27 201
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