COLOR–MAGNITUDE RELATIONS OF ACTIVE AND NON-ACTIVE GALAXIES IN THE CHANDRA DEEP FIELDS: HIGH-REDSHIFT CONSTRAINTS AND STELLAR-MASS SELECTION EFFECTS

By Yongquan Xue, W. N. Brandt, B. Luo, D. Rafferty, D. M. Alexander, F. E. Bauer, B. Lehmer, D. Schneider, J. Silverman. 2010

165 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We extend color–magnitude relations for moderate-luminosity X-ray active galactic nucleus (AGN) hosts and non-AGN galaxies through the galaxy formation epoch (z ≈ 1–4) in the Chandra Deep Field-North and Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-N and CDF-S, respectively; jointly CDFs) surveys. This study was enabled by the deepest available X-ray data from the 2 Ms CDF surveys as well as complementary ultradeep multiwavelength data in these regions. We utilized analyses of color–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) to assess the role of moderate-luminosity AGNs in galaxy evolution. First, we confirm some previous results and extend them to higher redshifts, finding, for example, that (1) there is no apparent color bimodality (i.e., the lack of an obvious red sequence and blue cloud) for AGN hosts from z ≈ 0to2, but non-AGN galaxy color bimodality exists up to z ≈ 3 and the relative fraction of red-sequence galaxies generally increases as the redshift decreases (consistent with a blue-to-red migration of galaxies), (2) most AGNs reside in massive hosts and the AGN fraction rises strongly toward higher stellar mass, up to z ≈ 2–3, and (3) the colors of both AGN hosts and non-AGN galaxies become redder as the stellar mass increases, up to z ≈ 2–3. Second, we point out that, in order to obtain a complete and reliable picture, it is critical to use mass-matched samples to examine color–magnitude relations of AGN hosts and non-AGN galaxies. We show that for mass-matched samples up to z ≈ 2–3, AGN hosts lie in the same region of the CMD as non-AGN galaxies; i.e., there is no specific clustering of AGN hosts in the CMD around the red sequence, the top of the blue cloud, or the green valley in between. The AGN fraction (≈ 10%) is mostly independent of host-galaxy color, providing an indication of the duty cycle of supermassive black hole growth in typical massive galaxies. These results are in contrast to those obtained with non-mass-matched samples where there is apparent AGN clustering in the CMD and the AGN fraction generally increases as the color becomes redder. We also find, for mass-matched samples, that the star formation rates of AGN hosts are typically a factor of ≈ 2–3 larger than those of non-AGN galaxies at z ≈ 0–1, whereas this difference diminishes at z ≈ 1–3. With mass-selection effects taken into account, we find that almost all of the results obtained in this work can reasonably be explained by two main ingredients, color–mass correlation (i.e., X-ray AGNs preferentially reside in massive galaxies that generally tend to be redder than less-massive galaxies) and passive or secular evolution of galaxies. Our results show that the presence of moderate-luminosity AGN activity does not have a significant effect on the colors of galaxies and thus tightly constrain any effects from moderate-luminosity AGN feedback upon color–magnitude properties over the ≈ 80% of cosmic time during which most of galaxy formation occurred.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. D. M. Alexander
2. P. Hopkins
3. L. Hernquist
4. A. Dekel
5. R. Dav'e
6. C. Conroy
7. R. Somerville
8. P. V. van Dokkum

In Instrumentation

1. P. Hopkins
2. D. M. Alexander
3. L. Hernquist
4. A. Dekel
5. C. Conroy
6. P. V. van Dokkum
7. R. Dav'e
8. E. Daddi

Citations in the corpus

• Galaxy Interactions Trigger Rapid Black Hole Growth: an unprecedented view from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey (2017, background): “Previous observations have suggested that the AGN fraction (above some particular threshold in AGN luminosity) rises steeply as a function of stellar mass (e.g., Xue et al. 2010; Aird et al. 2012; Bongiorno et al. 2012; Mullaney et al. 2012).”
• EVIDENCE FOR WIDE-SPREAD ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS-DRIVEN OUTFLOWS IN THE MOST MASSIVE z ∼ 1–2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2014, background): “…with previous findings in the literature, although statistical uncertainties are obviously large (e.g., Kauffmann et al. 2003b; Reddy et al. 2005; Papovich et al. 2006; Daddi et al. 2007; Brusa et al. 2009; Xue et al. 2010; Hainline et al. 2012; Bongiorno et al. 2012; Rosario et al. 2013a).”
• Enhanced star formation rates in AGN hosts with respect to inactive galaxies from PEP-Herschel observations (2012, background): “It is also in qualitative agreement with the results of Xue et al. (2010), who report a larger difference in the SFR between AGN hosts and mass-matched non-AGN galaxies in GOODS atz ≃ 0 − 1 (∼ 0.3 − 0.4 dex) than atz ≃ 1 − 3 (∼ 0.1−0.2 dex).”
• THE 4 Ms CHANDRA DEEP FIELD-SOUTH NUMBER COUNTS APPORTIONED BY SOURCE CLASS: PERVASIVE ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI AND THE ASCENT OF NORMAL GALAXIES (2012, methodology): “Values ofNH andLX were estimated following the procedure outlined in§3.4 of Xue et al. (2010).”
• THE 2 Ms CHANDRA DEEP FIELD-NORTH SURVEY AND THE 250 Ks EXTENDED CHANDRA DEEP FIELD-SOUTH SURVEY: IMPROVED POINT-SOURCE CATALOGS (2016, methodology): “5 7 keV is computed utilizing the procedure presented in Section 3.4 of Xue et al. (2010).”
• BLACK HOLE VARIABILITY AND THE STAR FORMATION–ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS CONNECTION: DO ALL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES HOST AN ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS? (2013, background): “Indeed, the tendency of AGNs to be found in relatively massive galaxies (e.g., Kauffmann et al. 2003; Colbert et al. 2005; Haggard et al. 2010; Xue et al. 2010; Cardamone et al. 2010) and halos (e.g., Hickox et al. 2009, 2011; Coil et al. 2009; Starikova et al. 2011; Allevato et al. 2011;…”
• THE CHANDRA DEEP FIELD-SOUTH SURVEY: 4 Ms SOURCE CATALOGS (2008, methodology): “…effective but not complete in identifying AGNs and refer readers to, e.g., Bauer et al. (2004), Alexander et al. (2005), Lehmer et al. (2008), and Xue et al. (2010) for discussions and caveats (e.g., lowluminosity and/or highly obscured AGNs may still not be identified through the criteria…”
• BLACK HOLE GROWTH AND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI OBSCURATION BY INSTABILITY-DRIVEN INFLOWS IN HIGH-REDSHIFT DISK GALAXIES FED BY COLD STREAMS (2011, background): “Observationally, the fraction of X-ray-detectable AGNs indeed declines with decreasing stellar mass (Xue et al. 2010).”
• Accretion-driven evolution of black holes: Eddington ratios, duty cycles and active galaxy fractions (2011, methodology): “…K06) at z > 1, Hickox et al. (2009; H09) at z ≈ 0.5, and Kauffmann & Heckman (2009; KH09) at z ≈ 1, and on active galaxy fraction data from Bundy et al. (2008) and Xue et al. (2010) at z > 0.5 and from Goulding et al. (2009), Kauffmann et al. (2003), and Schulze & Wisotzki (2010) at low redshift.”
• Constraining the properties of AGN host galaxies with spectral energy distribution modelling (2015, background): “The evidence for an increased AGN fraction among green valley galaxies is less strong, or may even disappear once the stellar mass of AGN hosts and the control galaxy samples are matched (e.g. Silverman et al. 2009; Xue et al. 2010; Aird et al. 2012).”
• The mean star formation rate of X-ray selected active galaxies and its evolution from z~2.5: results from PEP-Herschel (2012, methodology): “Silverman et al. (2009), using the SF sensitive [O II]λ3727 emission line, found wide-spread SF in low and moderate luminosity AGN hosts at levels comparable to inactive galaxies of similar stellar mass. AGN host colors paint a similar picture (Xue et al. 2010; Rosario et al. 2011).”
• A remarkably flat relationship between the average star formation rate and AGN luminosity for distant X-ray AGN. (2015, methodology): “We use multiband IR photometry, including 3 For the X-ray catalogues of CDF-S and C-COSMOS, the optical counterparts are provided by Xue et al. (2010) and Elvis et al. (2009).”
• Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies (2015, background): “…of galaxies hosting AGN activity above a fixed X-ray luminosity threshold rises steeply with host-galaxy mass out to at least z ≈ 2–3 (e.g., Bundy et al 2008; Brusa et al 2009b; Xue et al 2010; Georgakakis et al 2011; Bluck et al 2011; Aird et al 2012; Bongiorno et al 2012; Mullaney et al 2012b).”
• What drives the growth of black holes (2011, background): “The fraction of massive galaxies hosting Xray AGN activity out to z ≈ 2–3 is ≈ 10–20% for systems with LX >∼ 1042 erg s−1 (e.g., Bundy et al., 2008; Xue et al., 2010).”
• Accreting supermassive black holes in the COSMOS field and the connection to their host galaxies (2012, background): “Comparing with the whole galaxy population, we find that, at any redshift, AGNs are preferentially detected in massive galaxies, in agreement with previous studies (Brusa et al. 2009b; Silverman et al. 2009; Xue et al. 2010; Mullaney et al. 2012).”
• PRIMUS: THE DEPENDENCE OF AGN ACCRETION ON HOST STELLAR MASS AND COLOR (2011, background): “4; Xue et al. 2010).”
• LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products (2008, background): “The host galaxy is selected to have the closest match to the preferred stellar mass and color at the AGN’s redshift, following the results from Xue et al. (2010).”
• Active galactic nuclei: what’s in a name? (2017, background): “…BHs at Xray energies, the majority of the AGN detected in blank-field cosmic X-ray surveys are nevertheless found to reside in massive galaxies (stellar masses >1010 M , implying MBH > 107 M ; e.g. Brusa et al. 2009; Hickox et al. 2009; Xue et al. 2010; see Brandt and Alexander 2015 for a review).”
• GOODS-Herschel: the far-infrared view of star formation in active galactic nucleus host galaxies since z ≈ 3 (2011, methodology): “13 By excluding the quiescent 15±7 per cent of hosts from our average SSFRs, we estimate that the SSFRs of star-forming AGN hosts are ∼95 per cent of those of typical main-sequence (i.e., non-AGN) galaxies (and consistent to within the various uncertainties). ies.”