Faint high-redshift AGN in the Chandra deep field south: the evolution of the AGN luminosity function and black hole demography

By F. Fiore, S. Puccetti, A. Grazian, N. Menci, Francesco Shankar, P. Santini, E. Piconcelli, A. Koekemoer, A. Fontana, K. Boutsia and 7 more. 2011

136 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Context. We present detection and analysis of faint X-ray sources in the Chandra deep field south (CDFS) using the 4 Ms Chandra observation. Aims. We place constraints on active galactic nuclei (AGN) luminosity functions at z = 3–7, its cosmological evolution, and highredshift black hole and AGN demography. Methods. We use a new detection algorithm, using the entire three-dimensional data-cube (position and energy), and searching for X-ray counts at the position of high-z galaxies in the GOODS-South survey. Results. This optimized technique results in the identification of 54 AGN at z > 3, 29 of which are new detections. Applying stringent completeness criteria, we derive AGN luminosity functions in the redshift bins 3–4, 4–5, and >5.8 and for 42.75 3( 18 +17 −10 %). Their optical counterparts do not show any reddening and we thus conclude that the size of the X-ray absorber is likely smaller than the dust sublimation radius. We finally report the discovery of a highly star-forming galaxy at z = 3.47, arguing that its X-ray luminosity is likely dominated by stellar sources. If confirmed, this would be one of the farthest objects in which stellar sources have been detected in X-rays.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cd7f408a177edfaf25df55a18ea6637cdbb0528b

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Citations in the corpus

COSMIC REIONIZATION AFTER PLANCK: COULD QUASARS DO IT ALL? (2015, background): “The population of faint, high redshift AGNs invoked here should leave an imprint on the cosmic X-ray background (XRB).”
The bolometric quasar luminosity function at z = 0–7 (2020, unknown): “…et al. 2005; Silverman et al. 2005), we include new observational data from Ebrero et al. (2009); Aird et al. (2008); Silverman et al. (2008); Yencho et al. (2009); Aird et al. (2010); Fiore et al. (2012); Ueda et al. (2014); Aird et al. (2015a,b); Miyaji et al. (2015); Khorunzhev et al. (2018).”
Nuclear activity versus star formation: emission-line diagnostics at ultraviolet and optical wavelengths (2015, background): “…as the main drivers of cosmic reionization (e.g. Cowie et al. 2009; Willott et al. 2010; Fontanot et al. 2012), although quasars, mini-quasars and a faint AGN population could also play a significant role (e.g. Volonteri & Gnedin 2009; Fiore et al. 2012; Haardt & Salvaterra 2015; Hao et al. 2015).”
Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies (2015, methodology): “…AGNs above z ≈ 3 (e.g., Barger et al 2003a; Cristiani et al 2004; Fontanot et al 2007; Silverman et al 2008a; Brusa et al 2009a; Civano et al 2011; Fiore et al 2012a; Hiroi et al 2012; Vito et al 2013, 2014a; Kalfountzou et al 2014; Ueda et al 2014), ruling out some of the more exotic early…”
Faint AGNs at z > 4 in the CANDELS GOODS-S field: looking for contributors to the reionization of the Universe (2015, methodology): “Analysis by Fiore et al. (2012) of the brightest sources at z ∼ 3 suggests that the possible presence of significant X-ray absorption is uncorrelated with the presence of Lyman-α and CIV emission lines and low dust extinctions as in the case where absorption is in general close to the emitting…”
THE SDSS-III BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: THE QUASAR LUMINOSITY FUNCTION FROM DATA RELEASE NINE (2012, background): “…et al. 2012), mid-infrared (Brown et al. 2006; Siana et al. 2008; Assef et al. 2011) and the soft and hard X-ray (Cowie et al. 2003; Ueda et al. 2003; Hasinger et al. 2005; Barger et al. 2005; Silverman et al. 2005, 2008; Aird et al. 2008; Treister et al. 2009; Aird et al. 2010; Fiore et al. 2012).”
The incidence of obscuration in active galactic nuclei (2013, background): “Evidence of excess absorption in more luminous, distant type-1 QSOs was already highlighted by Perola et al. (2004) and Fiore et al. (2012), and for AGN in the Chandra-COSMOS survey by Lanzuisi et al. (2013).”
Cosmological simulations of black hole growth: AGN luminosities and downsizing (2013, unknown): “…range (XMM–Newton, Chandra, ROSAT, ASCA, eRosita; e.g. Miyaji, Hasinger & Schmidt 2000; La Franca et al. 2002; Barger et al. 2003; Cowie et al. 2003; Fiore et al. 2003, 2012; Ueda et al. 2003; Sazonov & Revnivtsev 2004; Barger & Cowie 2005; Hasinger, Miyaji & Schmidt 2005; Nandra, Laird & Steidel…”
Accreting supermassive black holes in the COSMOS field and the connection to their host galaxies (2012, methodology): “…line is the prediction for the total AGN fraction, computed in the same redshift bins, and above the same luminosity thresholds, from the ‘AGN occupation’ model of Fiore et al. (2012), while the dotted line in the first redshift bin is a modified version of it (see text for more details).”
THE FINAL SDSS HIGH-REDSHIFT QUASAR SAMPLE OF 52 QUASARS AT z > 5.7 (2016, background): “The Astrophysical Journal, 833:222 (17pp), 2016 December 20 Jiang et al. On the other hand, the faint-end slope of the optical QLF at >z 3 has not been well constrained (e.g., Glikman et al. 2011; Ikeda et al. 2011, 2012; Fiore et al. 2012).”
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THE CHANDRA COSMOS SURVEY. III. OPTICAL AND INFRARED IDENTIFICATION OF X-RAY POINT SOURCES (2012, background): “Eventually, the best approach to trace the full population of AGN at all redshifts and all luminosities is to merge the data coming from all the layers of the wedding cake (see e.g., Fiore et al. 2012).”
Observational evidence for intermediate-mass black holes (2017, background): “Additional constraints on the mass and growth of seed BHs can be provided by the X-ray non-detections of faint AGN at z ≥ 5 (e.g., Treister et al. 2013; Weigel et al. 2015; Vito et al. 2016) nor of Lyman Break Galaxies (e.g., Willott 2011; Cowie et al. 2012; Fiore et al. 2012).”
The Coevolution of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes: Insights from Surveys of the Contemporary Universe (2014, background): “Fiore et al. (2012) show that this behavior of the bright AGN population may extend to even higher redshifts.”
Black hole evolution – I. Supernova-regulated black hole growth (2015, background): “…of z > 6 galaxies: current data are sensitive to 105–106 M BHs accreting at 1–10 per cent Eddington (Willott 2011; Cowie, Barger & Hasinger 2012; Fiore et al. 2012; Treister et al. 2013; Giallongo et al. 2015; Weigel et al. 2015), but very few, if any are found, implying strong limits on the…”
Enhanced star formation rates in AGN hosts with respect to inactive galaxies from PEP-Herschel observations (2012, background): “While major mergers are usually invoked to produce bright quasars (e.g. Hopkins & Hernquist 2009; Veilleux et al. 2009b; Fiore et al. 2012), secular processesar asserted to be sufficient to trigger the active nucleus in low luminosity AGNs (e.g. Hopkins & Hernquist 2009; Mullaney et al. 2012).”
AGN wind scaling relations and the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies (2017, methodology): “At z > 3 we used the Fiore et al. (2012), Ueda et al. (2014), Georgakakis et al. (2015), Aird et al. (2015), Kalfountzou et al. (2014), Vito et al. (2014), Marchesi et al. (2016), and Puccetti et al. (in prep.)”
RELATIONS BETWEEN CENTRAL BLACK HOLE MASS AND TOTAL GALAXY STELLAR MASS IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE (2015, background): “Searches for AGN in galaxies with stellar masses ∼ 109 M⊙ at z > 6 have found very few, if any, BHs (Willott 2011; Fiore et al. 2012; Cowie et al. 2012; Treister et al. 2013; Giallongo et al. 2015; Weigel et al. 2015).”
The cosmic evolution of massive black holes in the Horizon-AGN simulation (2016, background): “The limits at z > 6 are derived from stacked high-z galaxies (Willott 2011; Cowie, Barger & Hasinger 2012; Fiore et al. 2012; Treister et al. 2013) or from the integrated X-ray background (Salvaterra et al. 2012); Compton thick sources are not included in these limits.”