The Correlation of Narrow Line Emission and X-ray Luminosity in Active Galactic Nuclei

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

10 pages, 3 diagrams, accepted by A&A

Scientific paper

10.1051/0004-6361:20054203

We combine emission line and X-ray luminosities for 45 sources from the Chandra Deep Field South (CDF-S), and seven HELLAS sources, to obtain a new sample of 52 X-ray selected type-II active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Eighteen of our sources are very luminous with a typical, absorption-corrected 2-10 keV luminosity of few 10^{44} erg/sec (type-II QSOs). We compare the emission line properties of the new sources with emission line and X-ray luminosities of known low redshift, mostly lower luminosity AGNs by using a composite spectrum. We find that ${\rm L_{[OIII]}}$/${\rm L_{2-10}}$ and ${\rm L_{[OII]}}$/${\rm L_{2-10}}$ decrease with L(2-10 keV) such that ${\rm L_{[OIII]}}/{\rm L_{2-10}} \propto {\rm L_{2-10}}^{-0.42}$. The trend was already evident, yet neglected in past low redshift samples. This lead to erroneous calibration of the line-to-X-ray luminosity in earlier AGN samples. The analysis of several type-I samples shows the same trend with a similar slope but a median ${\rm L_{[OIII]}}$/${\rm L_{2-10}}$ which is larger by a factor of about two compared with optically selected type-II samples. We interpret this shift as due to additional reddening in type-II sources and comment in general on the very large extinction in many type-II objects and the significantly smaller average reddening of the SDSS type-II AGNs. The decrease of ${\rm L_{[OIII]}}$/${\rm L_{2-10}}$ with L(2--10 keV) is large enough to suggest that a significant fraction of high luminosity high redshift type-II AGNs have very weak emission lines that may have escaped detection in large samples. A related decrease of EW([OIII]) with optical continuum luminosity is demonstrated by an analysis of 12,000 type-I SDSS AGNs.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

The Correlation of Narrow Line Emission and X-ray Luminosity in Active Galactic Nuclei does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Correlation of Narrow Line Emission and X-ray Luminosity in Active Galactic Nuclei, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Correlation of Narrow Line Emission and X-ray Luminosity in Active Galactic Nuclei will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-412878

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.