Bibcode
Page, M. J.; Carrera, F. J.; Hasinger, G.; Mason, K. O.; McMahon, R. G.; Mittaz, J. P. D.; Barcons, X.; Carballo, R.; Gonzalez-Serrano, I.; Perez-Fournon, I.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 281, Issue 2, pp. 579-590.
Advertised on:
7
1996
Citations
49
Refereed citations
38
Description
A sample of 198 soft X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) from
the ROSAT International X-ray Optical Survey (RIXOS) is used to
investigate the X-ray luminosity function and its evolution. RIXOS, with
a flux limit of 3x10^-14 erg s^-1 cm^-2 (0.5 to 2.0 keV), samples a
broad range in redshift over 20 deg^2 of sky, and is almost completely
identified; it is used in combination with the Einstein Extended Medium
Sensitivity Survey (EMSS) to give a total sample of over 600 AGN. We
find the evolution of AGN with redshift to be consistent with pure
luminosity evolution (PLE) models in which the evolution slows markedly
or stops at high redshifts (z<~1.8). We find
that this result is not affected by the inclusion, or exclusion, of
narrow-emission-line galaxies at low redshift in the RIXOS and EMSS
samples, and is insensitive to uncertainties in the conversion between
flux values measured with ROSAT and Einstein. We confirm, using a
model-independent V_e/V_a test, that our survey is consistent with no
evolution at high redshifts.