Spitzer Observations of the First Unbiased AGN Sample of the Local Universe

Details Spitzer Observations of the First Unbiased AGN Sample of the Local Universe Spitzer Observations of the First Unbiased AGN Sample of the Local Universe

May 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006sptz.prop30745w&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #30745

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Many questions fundamental to AGN research remain unanswered because there still exists no large uniform AGN survey of the local universe. Such surveys are difficult because the majority of AGN are obscured by large amounts of dust and gas and prior astronomical samples suffer from severe selection effects. In the IR, the observed luminosities and spectral shapes are strongly affected by star formation and dust absorption and emission and there is in fact no clear consistency in IR AGN properties - Spitzer spectra show a large variety of signatures and a wide range of effective IR colors. The hard X-ray emission is the only radiation known that is both relatively unaffected by Compton-thin obscuration and is directly associated with the AGN. We propose here a "pilot study" of a new hard x-selected sample of AGN with the BAT on Swift with the goal of obtaining the first high quality IR spectral survey of an unbiased local AGN sample. These targets provide a means for insight into the IR/x-ray scatter and thus can determine the true distribution of IR properties of AGN. It is only by having an independent measure of AGN strength and total absorbing column density from a well-observed hard x-ray sample that one can untangle the complexity of the IR data. A hard x-ray survey will find all Compton thin AGN in a uniform fashion and determine their intrinsic luminosity. With these data we will search for the nonthermal continuum in the IR, constrain star formation in the galaxies, directly compare line-of-sight IR and x-ray column densities and construct non ad-hoc continuum models based on x-ray fluxes to predict the IR line ratios in gas photoionized by the AGN.

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