The XMM-Newton view of the relativistic spectral features in AXJ0447-0627

The XMM-Newton observation of the optically Type 1 AGN AXJ0447-0627 (z=0.214) unambiguously reveals a complex, bright and prominent set of lines in the 4-8 keV rest frame energy range. Although, from a phenomenological point of view, the observed properties can be described by a simple power law model plus 5 narrow Gaussian lines (at rest frame energies of nearly 4.49, 5.55, 6.39, 7.02 and 7.85 keV), we find that a model comprising a power law (Gamma of the order of 2.2), a reflected relativistic continuum, a narrow Fe I Kalpha line from neutral material as well as a broad Fe Kalpha relativistic line from a ionized accretion disk represents a good physical description of the data. The ''double horned'' profile of the relativistic line implies an inclination of the accretion disk of the order of 45 degree, and an origin in a narrow region of the disk, from R_in of the order of 19 GM/c^2 to R_out of the order of 30 GM/c^2. The narrow Fe I Kalpha line from neutral material is probably produced far from the central black hole, most likely in the putative molecular torus. Although some of these properties have been already found in other Type 1 AGN and discussed in the literature, at odd with the objects reported so far we measure high equivalent widths (EWs) of the observed lines: nearly 1.4 keV for the ``double horned'' relativistic line and nearly 0.4 keV for the narrow line.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, Latex manuscript; accepted for publication in Ap

Exploring the X-ray Sky with the XMM-Newton Bright Serendipitous Survey

ABRIDGED. We present "The XMM-Newton Bright Serendipitous Survey", two flux-limited samples with flux limit fx ~7E-14 cgs in the 0.5-4.5 keV (BSS) and 4.5-7.5 keV (HBSS) energy band, respectively. After discussing the survey strategy, we present the basic data on a complete sample of 400 X-ray sources derived from the analysis of 237 XMM-Newton fields. The survey covers an area of 28.10 (25.17 for the HBSS) sq. deg. Up to now ~71% (~90%) of the sources have been spectroscopically identified making the BSS (HBSS) the sample with the highest number of identified XMM-Newton sources published so far. We find that: a) the optical counterpart in the majority (~90%) of cases has a magnitude brighter than the POSS II limit; b) the majority of the objects identified so far are broad line AGN. No obvious trend of the source spectra (as deduced from the Hardness Ratios analysis) as a function of the count rate is seen and the average spectra of the "extragalactic" population corresponds to an X-ray energy spectral index of ~0.8 (~0.64) for the BSS (HBSS) sample. About 13% (40%) of the sources are described by an energy spectral index flatter than that of the CXB. We measure a surface density of optically type 1 and type 2 AGN of 1.63+/-0.25 deg-2 and 0.83+/-0.18$ deg-2, respectively; optically type 2 AGN represent 34+/-9% of the total AGN population. Finally, we find a clear separation, in the hardness ratio diagram and in the (hardness ratio) vs. (X-ray to optical flux ratio) diagram, between "coronal emitting" stars and extragalactic sources.Comment: 42 pages, 7 figures, 8 Tables, Accepted for publication in A&

On the cosmological evolution of BL Lacs

We study the cosmological evolution of BL Lac objects by applying the Ve/Va analysis to a new sample of 55 objects presented for the first time in this paper. This sample has been selected from the 239 sources with the brightest X-ray flux (>4X10^-13 erg s^-1 cm^-2) and relatively bright optical counterpart (B<20.5) among the ~1600 objects included in the REX survey. The uniform distribution of the Ve/Va values found in the sample suggests that BL Lac objects are not affected by a strong cosmological evolution in contrast with the behavior observed in the emission line AGNs. The Ve/Va analysis applied to the subsample of the High energy peaked BL Lacs (HBL) does not reveal a significant departure from a uniform distribution. This result suggests either that the cosmological evolution is less extreme than that previously found in other samples or that it is carried out only by a minority of objects, namely by the most extreme HBLs.Comment: Accepted for publication in Part 1 of The Astrophysical Journa

XMM-Newton observations expose AGN in apparently normal galaxies

We have performed a detailed analysis of 3 optically normal galaxies extracted from the XMM Bright Serendipitous Source Sample. Thanks to the good statistics of the XMM-Newton data, we have unveiled the presence of an AGN in all of them. In particular, we detect both X-ray obscured (N_H>10^{22} cm^{-2}) and unobscured (N_H<10^{22} cm^{-2}) AGN with intrinsic 2--10 keV luminosities in the range between 10^{42} -- 10^{43} erg s^{-1}. We find that the X-ray and optical properties of the sources discussed here could be explained assuming a standard AGN hosted by galaxies with magnitudes M_R<M^*, taking properly into account the absorption associated with the AGN, the optical faintness of the nuclear emission with respect to the host galaxy, and the inadequate set--up and atmospheric conditions during the optical spectroscopic observations. Our new spectroscopic observations have revealed the expected AGN features also in the optical band. These results clearly show that optical spectroscopy sometimes can be inefficient in revealing the presence of an AGN, which instead is clearly found from an X-ray spectroscopic investigation. This remarks the importance of being careful in proposing the identification of X-ray sources (especially at faint fluxes) when only low quality optical spectra are in hand. This is particularly important for faint surveys (such as those with XMM-Newton and Chandra), in which optically dull but X-ray active objects are being found in sizeable numbers.Comment: Accepted for publication on A&A; 11 pages, 8 figure

A sample of X-ray emitting normal galaxies from the BMW -- HRI Catalogue

We have obtained a sample of 143 normal galaxies with X-ray luminosity in the range $10^{38} - 10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$ from the cross-correlation of the ROSAT HRI Brera Multi-scale Wavelet (BMW -- HRI) Catalogue with the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database (LEDA). We find that the average X-ray properties of this sample are in good agreement with those of other samples of galaxies in the literature. We have selected a complete flux limited serendipitous sample of 32 galaxies from which we have derived the logN-logS distribution of normal galaxies in the flux range $1.1 - 110 \times 10^{-14}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. The resulting distribution is consistent with the euclidean -1.5 slope. Comparisons with other samples, such as the Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey, the ROSAT All Sky Survey, the XMM - Newton/2dF survey and the Chandra Deep Field Survey indicate that the logN-logS distribution of normal galaxies is consistent with an euclidean slope over a flux range of about 6 decades.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 19 pages, 7 figures. Full resolution version of Figure 2 is available at http://www.brera.mi.astro.it/~tajer

Cluster Evolution in the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole Survey

The deepest region of the ROSAT All-Sky Survey, at the North Ecliptic Pole, has been studied to produce a complete and unbiased X-ray selected sample of clusters of galaxies. This sample is used to investigate the nature of cluster evolution and explore potential implications for large-scale structure models. The survey is 99.6% optically identified. Spectroscopic redshifts have been measured for all the extragalactic identifications. In this Letter, first results on cluster evolution are presented based on a comparison between the number of the observed clusters in the North Ecliptic Pole survey and the number of expected clusters assuming no-evolution models. At z>0.3 there is a deficit of clusters with respect to the local universe which is significant at > 4.7sigma. The evolution appears to commence at L_{0.5-2.0} > 1.8x10^{44} erg s^{-1} in our data. The negative evolution goes in the same direction as the original EMSS result, the results from the 160 deg^{2} survey by Vikhlinin et al. (1998) and the recent results from the RDCS (Rosati et al. 2000). At lower redshifts there is no evidence for evolution, a result in agreement with these and other cluster surveys.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter