Infrared Investigations of Star Formation Suppression in X-Ray Selected Active Galactic Nuclei

Infrared Investigations of Star Formation Suppression in X-Ray Selected Active Galactic Nuclei
Author: Arianna Brown
Publisher:
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2017
Genre: Astrophysics
ISBN: 9781369846201

We now know that most galaxies play host to a supermassive black hole that resides at their centers. When the black hole is actively consuming dust and gas over long periods of time, it emits radiation at every wavelength, becomes brighter than the host galaxy and is commonly known as an active galactic nuclei (AGN). Some scientists believe AGNs play an important role in suppressing their host galaxy's star formation rate (SFR) by heating up, consuming and/or blasting away the cool gas and dust necessary to create stars. This mechanism is theorized as a critical step in AGN and galaxy evolutionary models in order to create the local universe we see today. Efforts to observe this effect suffer from several limitations including but not limited to low number statistics for powerful (LAGN > 1044.8 erg/s) AGN and single-band photometric estimations for star formation rates. In this work, we aim to overcome those limitations by estimating spectral energy distributions and SFRs for 550 AGN detected in the Chandra XBootes X-Ray Survey. We use available infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, Herschel Space Observatory and NOAO's Mayall and Blanco telescopes to calculate SFRs corrected for mid to far-infrared contribution from heated dusty tori surrounding AGNs. We reproduce trends found in similar studies: when averaging the highly variable AGN activity in bins of more steady SFRs, we find a positive linear correlation for intermediate redshift (0.5

Active Galactic Nuclei Studies in Cosmic X-ray Survey Fields

Active Galactic Nuclei Studies in Cosmic X-ray Survey Fields
Author: Qingling Ni
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021
Genre:
ISBN:

X-ray surveys are an effective way to study growing supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galaxy centers, as actively accreting SMBHs manifest themselves as active galactic nuclei (AGN) that can be observed in the X-ray in most cases. Through studying AGNs in X-ray survey fields that have extensive multiwavelength data coverage, we can probe how SMBH growth links with their host galaxies over cosmic history. Previously, researchers mainly linked SMBH growth with stellar mass (M⋆) or star formation rate (SFR). In this dissertation, we utilize morphological information to show that among star-forming (SF) galaxies, long-term average SMBH accretion rate (BHAR) relates to host-galaxy compactness (Chapter 2). We found that the relation between BHAR and host-galaxy compactness is more fundamental than the relation between BHAR and M⋆ or SFR (Chapter 3). This dissertation also provides key results from the XMM-Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (XMM-SERVS), which will benefit studies of SMBH growth in the next decade with a large sample of AGNs that have superb multiwavelength data. The detection of X-ray point sources in two of the XMM-SERVS survey fields is presented in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, multiwavelength counterpart identification, photometric-redshift calculation, and source classification for X-ray sources in the XMM-SERVS survey fields are presented; most of the X-ray point-like sources detected are classified as AGNs, showing SMBH growth over the full range of cosmic environments. A Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) forced-photometry catalog that provides optical coverage for one of the XMM-SERVS survey fields is presented in Chapter 6. Apart from these works that focus on "Active Galactic Nuclei Studies in Cosmic X-ray Survey Fields", this dissertation also includes my other two first-author works in the appendices, where X-ray observational studies of weak-line quasars (WLQs) are presented. By studying these quasars with exceptional spectroscopic properties, we found good supporting evidence for optically thick inner accretion disks among quasars with high Eddington ratios.