http://arxiv.org/abs/1712.07250
The most heavily-obscured, luminous quasars might represent a specific phase of the evolution of actively accreting supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, possibly related to mergers. We investigated a sample of the most luminous quasars at $z\approx 1-3$ in the GOODS fields, selected in the mid-infrared band through detailed spectral energy distribution (SED) decomposition. The vast majority of these quasars (~80%) are obscured in the X-ray band and ~30% of them to such an extent, that they are undetected in some of the deepest (2 and 4 Ms) Chandra X-ray data. Although no clear relation is found between the star-formation rate of the host galaxies and the X-ray obscuration, we find a higher incidence of heavily-obscured quasars in disturbed/merging galaxies compared to the unobscured ones, thus possibly representing an earlier stage of evolution, after which the system is relaxing and becoming unobscured.
A. Moro, D. Alexander, F. Bauer, et. al.
Thu, 21 Dec 17
63/76
Comments: 8 pages, 3 figures. Proceeding of “Quasars at all cosmic epochs”, Padova April 2017. Accepted for publication in Front. Astron. Space Sci.; M. D’Onofrio, D. Dultzin, A. Del Olmo, P. Marziani, eds
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