Bibcode
DOI
Willott, Chris J.; Simpson, Chris; Almaini, Omar; Johnson, Olivia; Lawrence, Andrew; Dunlop, James S.; Roche, Nathan D.; Mann, Robert G.; Manners, James C.; González-Solares, Eduardo; Pérez-Fournon, Ismael; Ivison, Rob J.; Serjeant, Stephen; Oliver, Seb J.; McMahon, Richard G.; Rowan-Robinson, Michael
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 610, Issue 1, pp. 140-150.
Advertised on:
7
2004
Journal
Citations
13
Refereed citations
13
Description
Hard X-ray surveys have uncovered a large population of heavily obscured
AGNs. They also reveal a population of quasars with moderate obscuration
at both visible and X-ray wavelengths. We use Chandra-selected samples
of quasars from the ELAIS Deep X-ray Survey (EDXS) and the Chandra Deep
Field-North to investigate the obscuration toward the nuclei of
moderately obscured AGNs. We find an inverse correlation between the
optical-to-X-ray flux ratio and the X-ray hardness ratio that can be
interpreted as being due to obscuration at visible and X-ray
wavelengths. We present detailed optical and near-infrared data for a
sample of optically faint (R>23) quasars from the EDXS. These are
used to constrain the amount of rest-frame UV/optical reddening toward
these quasars. It is found that optically faint quasars are mostly faint
because of obscuration, not because they are intrinsically weak. After
correcting for reddening, the optical magnitudes of most of these
quasars are similar to the brighter quasars at these X-ray fluxes.
Combining with gas column densities inferred from the X-ray
observations, we consider the gas-to-dust ratios of the obscuring
matter. We find that the quasars generally have higher gas-to-dust
absorption than that seen in the Milky Way, similar to what has been
found for nearby Seyfert galaxies. We consider the possible existence of
a large population of X-ray sources that have optical properties of type
1 (unobscured) quasars but X-ray properties of type 2 (obscured)
quasars. However, we find that such sources only contribute about 6% of
the 0.5-8 keV X-ray background. Finally, we show that the observed
distribution of optical-to-X-ray flux ratios of quasars at z>1 is
skewed to low values compared to the intrinsic distribution as a result
of the fact that the observed-frame R-band light is emitted in the UV
and is more easily obscured than hard X-rays.