Bibcode
Bierschenk, M.; Ricci, C.; Temple, M. J.; Satyapal, S.; Cann, J.; Xie, Y.; Diaz, Y.; Ichikawa, K.; Koss, M. J.; Bauer, F. E.; Rojas, A.; Kakkad, D.; Tortosa, A.; Ricci, F.; Mushotzky, R.; Kawamuro, T.; Gupta, K. K.; Trakhtenbrot, B.; Chang, C. S.; Riffel, R.; Oh, K.; Harrison, F.; Powell, M.; Stern, D.; Urry, C. M.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal
Advertised on:
12
2024
Journal
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We analyze Spitzer spectra of 140 active galactic nuclei (AGN) detected in the hard X-rays (14–195 keV) by the Burst Alert Telescope on board Swift. This sample allows us to probe several orders of magnitude in black hole masses (106–109 M ⊙), Eddington ratios (10‑3–1), X-ray luminosities (1042–1045 erg s‑1), and X-ray column densities (1020–1024 cm‑2). The AGN emission is expected to be the dominant source of ionizing photons with energies ≳50 eV, and therefore, high-ionization mid-infrared (MIR) emission lines such as [Ne V] 14.32, 24.32 μm and [O IV] 25.89 μm are predicted to be good proxies of AGN activity, and robust against obscuration effects. We find high detection rates (≳85%–90%) for the MIR coronal emission lines in our AGN sample. The luminosities of these lines are correlated with the 14–150 keV luminosity (with a typical scatter of σ ∼0.4–0.5 dex), strongly indicating that the MIR coronal line (CL) emission is driven by AGN activity. CLs are also tightly correlated to the bolometric luminosity (σ ∼0.2–0.3 dex), calculated from careful analysis of the spectral energy distribution. We find that the relationship between the CL strengths and L 14–150 keV is independent of black hole mass, AGN luminosity, and Eddington ratio, and mostly not affected by high X-ray column densities. This confirms that the MIR CLs can be used as unbiased tracers of the AGN power for X-ray luminosities in the 1042–1045 erg s‑1 range.