Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21330606t&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #306.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.277
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Most cosmic accretion onto super-massive black holes is obscured by gas and dust that absorbs all but the hardest X-ray photons. By performing deep observations at very high energies, E>10; keV, it is possible to obtain a complete sample of the AGN population, including the elusive Compton thick (CT) sources. Here, we present a study of the population of CT AGN and its relationship to the extragalactic X-ray background. Based on observations at rest frame energies greater than 10 keV, we found that in the local Universe CT AGN are less numerous than previously expected, and contribute only ˜10% of the extragalactic X-ray radiation. We compare the observed spatial density of local and high redshift CT sources and find an apparent lack of CT AGN in the nearby Universe. This indicates that the most obscured sources follow a different evolution than mildy-absorbed AGN. Finally, we present prospects for the detection of highly obscured AGN at the epoch of maximum supermassive black hole growth, z˜1, using planned space missions like NuSTAR and EXIST.
E.T. gratefully acknowledges the support provided by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship Award Number PF8-90055 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-03060. This work was made possible by support from NASA/INTEGRAL grant NNG05GM79G.
Treister Ezequiel
Urry Claudia
Virani Shanil
No associations
LandOfFree
The Space Density of Compton Thick AGN 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 Space Density of Compton Thick AGN, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Space Density of Compton Thick AGN will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1696863