Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

NuSTAR and Keck Observations of Heavily Obscured Quasars Selected by WISE

Yan, Wei; Hickox, Ryan C.; Hainline, Kevin N.; Stern, Daniel; Lansbury, George; Alexander, David M.; Hviding, Raphael E.; Assef, Roberto J.; Ballantyne, David R.; Dipompeo, Michael A.; Lanz, Lauranne; Carroll, Christopher M.; Koss, Michael; Lamperti, Isabella; Civano, Francesca; Moro, Agnese Del; Gandhi, Poshak; Myers, Adam D.

NuSTAR and Keck Observations of Heavily Obscured Quasars Selected by WISE Thumbnail


Authors

Wei Yan

Ryan C. Hickox

Kevin N. Hainline

Daniel Stern

George Lansbury

Raphael E. Hviding

Roberto J. Assef

David R. Ballantyne

Michael A. Dipompeo

Lauranne Lanz

Christopher M. Carroll

Michael Koss

Isabella Lamperti

Francesca Civano

Agnese Del Moro

Poshak Gandhi

Adam D. Myers



Abstract

A primary aim of the ${Nuclear}\,{Spectroscopic}\,{Telescope}\,{Array}$ (NuSTAR) mission is to find and characterize heavily obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). Based on mid-infrared photometry from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and optical photometry from the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys, we have selected a large population of luminous obscured AGNs (i.e., "obscured quasars"). Here we report NuSTAR observations of four WISE-selected heavily obscured quasars for which we have optical spectroscopy from the Southern African Large Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory. Optical diagnostics confirm that all four targets are AGNs. With NuSTAR hard X-ray observations, three of the four objects are undetected, while the fourth has a marginal detection. We confirm that these objects have observed hard X-ray (10–40 keV) luminosities at or below ~1043 erg s−1. We compare X-ray and IR luminosities to obtain estimates of the hydrogen column densities (N H) based on the suppression of the hard X-ray emission. We estimate N H of these quasars to be at or larger than 1025 cm−2, confirming that WISE and optical selection can identify very heavily obscured quasars that may be missed in X-ray surveys, and they do not contribute significantly to the cosmic X-ray background. From the optical Balmer decrements, we found that our three extreme obscured targets lie in highly reddened host environments. This galactic extinction cannot adequately explain the more obscured AGNs, but it may imply a different scale of obscuration in the galaxy.

Citation

Yan, W., Hickox, R. C., Hainline, K. N., Stern, D., Lansbury, G., Alexander, D. M., …Myers, A. D. (2019). NuSTAR and Keck Observations of Heavily Obscured Quasars Selected by WISE. Astrophysical Journal, 870(1), Article 33. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaeed4

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 2, 2018
Online Publication Date Jan 2, 2019
Publication Date Jan 2, 2019
Deposit Date Jan 17, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Astrophysical Journal
Print ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher American Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 870
Issue 1
Article Number 33
DOI https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aaeed4

Files

Published Journal Article (3.9 Mb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
© 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.





You might also like



Downloadable Citations