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

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

Mar 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50588w&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #50588

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have been a major focus of extragalactic astronomy for decades, but because of obscuration effects, virtually all surveys for AGN based purely on optical, IR, UV or soft X-ray data have been highly biased in their selection (cf. Mushotzky 2004). Thus, to truly understand the intrinsic nature of AGN as a class, it is critical to start with an unbiased hard X-ray survey. This critical, unbiased hard X-ray survey is now available from the SWIFT Burst Alert Telescope (BAT). The BAT detects all bright AGN, whether they are obscured or not, and thus will find famous classical objects as well as previously unknown AGN. In fact, many of the BAT sources are newly discovered AGN, which have been poorly studied, if at all, at other wavelengths. We have found that these 'new' AGN are under-luminous in their IR properties compared to classic AGN and thus IR-selected samples have not been representative. Our IR-weak AGN may be the most heavily obscured ones. Completing the BAT sample is critical to obtain a complete, unbiased sample of AGN properties based on hard X-ray data and to understand this new IR-under-luminous class. These data will become an invaluable addition to the Spitzer archive. Statistical conclusions drawn from classical objects are almost certain to be wrong due to inherent biases in their selection, which exclude this sample of severely absorbed, BAT-detected AGN.

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