arXiv subjects

F. Fiore

Publications and source records attributed to F. Fiore.

At least 271 records · Page 15Linked to original sources

arXiv2004

HEXIT-SAT: a mission concept for X-ray grazing incidence telescopes from 0.5 to 70 keV

While the energy density of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB) provides a statistical estimate of the super massive black hole (SMBH) growth and mass density in the Universe, the lack, so far, of focusing instrument in the 20-60 keV (where the CXB energy density peaks), frustrates our effort to obtain a comprehensive picture of the SMBH evolutionary properties. HEXIT-SAT (High Energy X-ray Imaging Telescope SATellite) is a mission concept capable of exploring the hard X-ray sky with focusing/imaging instrumentation, to obtain an unbiased census of accreting SMBH up to the redshifts where galaxy formation peaks, and on extremely wide luminosity ranges. This will represent a leap forward comparable to that achieved in the soft X-rays by the Einstein Observatory in the late 70'. In addition to accreting SMBH, and very much like the Einstein Observatory, this mission would also have the capabilities of investigating almost any type of the celestial X-ray sources. HEXIT-SAT is based on high throughput (>400 cm2 @ 30 keV; >1200 cm2 @ 1 keV), high quality (15 arcsec Half Power Diameter) multi-layer optics, coupled with focal plane detectors with high efficiency in the full 0.5-70keV range. Building on the BeppoSAX experience, a low-Earth, equatorial orbit, will assure a low and stable particle background, and thus an extremely good sensitivity for faint hard X-ray sources. At the flux limits of 1/10 microCrab (10-30 keV) and 1/3 microCrab (20-40 keV) (reachable in one Msec observation) we should detect ~100 and ~40 sources in the 15 arcmin FWHM Field of View respectively, thus resolving >80% and ~65% of the CXB where its energy density peaks.

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arXiv2004

Overdensity of X-Ray sources near 3C 295: a candidate filament

We present a statistical analysis of the Chandra observation of the source field around the 3C 295 galaxy cluster (z=0.46) aimed at the search for clustering of X-ray sources. Three different methods of analysis, namely a chip by chip logN-logS, a two dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and the angular correlation function (ACF) show a strong overdensity of sources in the North-East of the field. In particular, the ACF shows a clear signal on scales of 0.5 - 5 arcmin. This correlation angle is > 2 times higher than that of a sample of 8 ACIS-I field at the 2.5 sigma confidence level. If this overdensity is spatially associated to the cluster, we are observing a 'filament' of the large scale structure of the Universe. We discuss some first results that seem to indicate such an association.

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arXiv2004

The Faint X-ray Source Population Near the 3C 295 cluster

We present a statistical analysis of the Chandra observation of the source field around the 3C 295 galaxy cluster (z=0.46). Three different methods of analysis, namely a chip by chip logN-logS, a two dimentional Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, and the angular correlation function (ACF) show a strong overdensity of sources in the North-East of the field, that may indicate a filament of the large scale structure of the Universe toward 3C 295.

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arXiv2004

High Energy Large Area Surveys: optically obscured AGN and the history of accretion

Hard X-ray, large area surveys are a fundamental complement of ultra-deep, pencil beam surveys in obtaining a more complete coverage of the L-z plane, allowing to find luminous QSO in wide z ranges. Furthermore, results from these surveys can be used to make reliable predictions about the luminosity (and hence the redshift) of the sources in the deep surveys which have optical counterparts too faint to be observed with the present generation of optical telescopes. This allows us to obtain accurate luminosity functions on wide luminosity and redshift intervals.

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arXiv2004

SN 2003lw and GRB 031203: A Bright Supernova for a Faint Gamma-ray Burst

Optical and near-infrared observations of the gamma-ray burst GRB 031203, at z = 0.1055, are reported. A very faint afterglow is detected superimposed to the host galaxy in our first infrared JHK observations, carried out ~9 hours after the burst. Subsequently, a rebrightening is detected in all bands, peaking in the R band about 18 rest-frame days after the burst. The rebrightening closely resembles the light curve of a supernova like SN 1998bw, assuming that the GRB and the SN went off almost simultaneously, but with a somewhat slower evolution. Spectra taken close to the maximum of the rebrightening show extremely broad features as in SN 1998bw. The determination of the absolute magnitude of this SN (SN 2003lw) is difficult owing to the large and uncertain extinction, but likely this event was brighter than SN 1998bw by 0.5 mag in the VRI bands, reaching an absolute magnitude M_V = -19.75+-0.15.

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arXiv2004

GRB 020813: polarization in the case of a smooth optical decay

We present the results of a VLT polarimetric monitoring campaign of the GRB 020813 optical afterglow carried out in three nights, from 0.88 to 4.20 days after the gamma-ray event. The mean values of the degree of linear polarization (P) and its position angle (Theta) resulting from our campaign are =1.18+/-0.10% and Theta = 148.7+/-2.3 deg after correcting for Galactic interstellar polarization. Our VLT data set is most naturally described by a constant degree of linear polarization and position angle, nonetheless a slow Theta evolution cannot be entirely ruled out by our data. The VLT monitoring campaign did not reveal either a significant Theta rotation respect to the Keck spectropolarimetric observations performed ~0.25 days after the GRB (Barth et al. 2003). However, is a factor of two lower than the polarization degree measured from Keck. Additionally, the VLT polarization data allowed us to construct an accurate V-band light curve. The V-band photometric data revealed a smooth light curve with a break located between the last Keck and our first VLT polarimetric measurement, 0.33 < t_(break, V) < 0.88 days after the GRB. The typical magnitude fluctuations of the VLT V-band lightcurve are 0.003 mag, 0.010 mag and 0.016 mag for our three observing nights, respectively. We speculate that the stability of Theta might be related to the smoothness of the light curve.

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arXiv2004

The HELLAS2XMM survey: VI. X-ray absorption in the 1dfAGN sample through a spectral analysis

The spectroscopic analysis of 117 serendipitous sources in the HELLAS2XMM 1df (1 degree field) survey is described. Of these, 106 sources, of which 86% have a spectroscopic redshift, are used to evaluate the fraction of X-ray absorbed (log NH>22) Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) in the 2--10 keV flux range 0.8-20E-14 erg/cm2/s. This fraction turns out lower than what is predicted by two well known Cosmic X-Ray Background synthesis models, and the discrepancy is significant at the 99.999% level. This result consolidates the findings recently obtained by other authors. In the flux interval explored, the data are consistent with an intrinsic distribution of the absorbing columns (flat per decade above logNH>21) independent of luminosity and redshift, together with an AGN luminosity function evolving purely in luminosity. It is shown that, on the other hand, extrapolation to lower fluxes fails to reproduce the results inferred from the Chandra Deep Field North survey. It is found that about 40% of the high luminosity sources in our sample have best fit logNH>22, and the surface density of these X-ray obscured QSOs can then be estimated at about 48 per square degree, at the flux limit of ~1E-14} erg/cm2/s of the HELLAS2XMM 1df survey. As a side issue, 5 or 6 out of 60 sources, that is about 10%, identified with broad line AGN, turn out to be affected by logNH>22 absorption.

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arXiv2004

Transmission- to reflection-dominated transition in Seyfert 2 galaxies: the XMM-Newton view

In this paper we present the current status of a XMM-Newton program to observe an optically-defined, complete and unbiased sample of Compton-thick Seyfert 2 galaxies. The main goal of this project is the measurement of the occurrence rate of transition between transmission- (i.e.: Compton-thin), and reflection-dominated spectral states. These transitions potentially provide information on the distribution of the obscuring matter surrounding the nucleus, and on the duty-cycle of the AGN activity. With about 2/3 of the whole sample being observed, we detected 1 further transition out of 8 observed objects, confirming previous suggestions that these transitions occur on time-scales ~50-100 years.

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arXiv2004

Absorption in Gamma Ray Burst afterglows

We studied the X-ray and optical absorption properties of 13 Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) afterglows observed by BeppoSAX. We found that X-ray absorption in addition to the Galactic one along the line of sight is highly statistically significant in the two cases with the best statistics (probability >99.9%). In three other cases the presence of X-ray absorption is marginally significant (probability 97%). Measured rest frame equivalent hydrogen column densities NH range from 0.1 to 10.0 x 10^22 cm-2 (at 90% confidence level) assuming a solar metal abundance. X-ray absorption may be common, although the quality of present data does not allow us to reach a firm conclusion. The rest frame NH derived from XMM and Chandra data as quoted in the literature are in good agreement with the BeppoSAX estimates. For the same GRB afterglow sample we evaluated the rest frame visual extinction AVr. We fitted the optical-NIR afterglow photometry with a power law model corrected by four different extinction curves. By comparing X-ray absorptions and optical extinction, we found that if a Galactic-like dust grain size distribution is assumed, a dust to gas ratio lower than the one observed in the Galaxy is required by the data. A dust to gas ratio 1/10 than the Galactic one, has been tested using the Small Magellanic Cloud extinction curve, which produces inconsistent results. Alternative scenarios to explain simultaneously the optical and X-ray data involve dust with grain size distributions biased toward large grains. Possible mechanisms that can bring to such a grain size distribution are discussed.

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arXiv2004

The HELLAS2XMM survey. V. Near-Infrared observations of X-ray sources with extreme X/O ratios

We present the results of deep near-infrared observations of 11 hard X-ray selected sources in the Hellas2XMM survey, with faint optical magnitude (R>24) and high X-ray-to-optical flux ratio. All but one of the sources have been detected in the Ks band, with bright counterparts (Ks<19) and red colors (R-K>5), and therefore belong to the ERO population. A detailed analysis of the surface brightness profiles allows us to classify all of the NIR counterparts. There are 2 point-like objects, 7 elliptical galaxies and one source with a disky profile. None of the extended sources shows any evidence for the presence of a central unresolved object tracing the putative X-ray emitting AGN. Using both the R-K colors and the morphological information, we have estimated for all the sources a ``minimum photometric redshift'', ranging between 0.8 and 2.4; the elliptical hosts have zmin=0.9-1.4. We computed the X-ray properties using these redshifts: most of the sources have NH>10^{22}, with unabsorbed X-ray luminosities up to 10^{45}erg s^{-1}. These objects therefore belong to the population of obscured (Type II) quasars and, from a statistical point of view, they turn out to be a non-negligible fraction (~10%) of the most luminous AGN. Selecting the high X/O sources for a follow-up study in the NIR is therefore a powerful technique aimed at studying at high redshift the hosts of Type II AGN. Overall, our results seem to indicate that the hosts are mostly elliptical galaxies at z~1, and that these near-IR bright objects would be among the most massive spheroids at these epochs.

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arXiv2004

X-Ray Evolution of Active Galactic Nuclei and Hierarchical Galaxy Formation

We have incorporated the description of the X-ray properties of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) into a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation, adopting physically motivated scaling laws for accretion triggered by galaxy encounters. Our model reproduces the level of the cosmic X-ray background at 30 keV; we predict that the largest contribution (around 2/3) comes from sources with intermediate X-ray luminosity 10^{43.5}< L_X/erg/s <10^{44.5}, with 50 % of the total specific intensity produced at z<2. The predicted number density of luminous X-ray AGNs (L_X>10^{44.5} erg/s in the 2-10 keV band) peaks at z around 2 with a decline of around 3 dex to z=0; for the low luminosity sources (10^{43}<L_X/erg/s <10^{44}) it has a broaderand less pronounced maximum around z 1.5. The comparison with the data shows a generally good agreement. The model predictions slightly exceed the observed number of low-luminosity AGNs at z around 1.5, with the discrepancy progressively extending to intermediate-luminosity objects at higher redshifts; we discuss possible origins for the mismatch. Finally, we predict the source counts and the flux distribution at different redshifts in the hard (20-100 keV) X-ray band for the sources contributing to the X- ray background.

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arXiv2003

Rapid N_H Changes in NGC 4151

We have analyzed two long BeppoSAX observations of the bright Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151, searching for short timescale (10-200 ksec) X-ray spectral variability. The light curve of a softness ratio, chosen as most sensitive to pinpoint changes of the column density of the absorbing gas along the line of sight, shows significant variations. We try to model these variations by performing a detailed, time resolved, spectral analysis. We find significant, large (factors of 1.5-6) variations of the absorber column densities on time scales of 40-200 ksec. These values are 10-100 times shorter than those found by Risaliti et al. 2002 in a sample of Seyfert 2 galaxies, and provide strong constraints on the geometry of the obscuring medium.

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arXiv2003

Six Years of ScoX-1 Monitoring with BeppoSAX Wide Field Cameras

We performed a systematic analysis of 54 Wide Field Camera (WFC) observations of ScoX-1 available in the BeppoSAX public archive. Observations span over the six years of BeppoSAX mission lifetime and include 690 hr of data. We searched for shifts and shape changes of the Z pattern in the color-color diagrams. We find that the Z pattern occupies most of the time the same locus in the color-color diagram. There are however a few exceptions, which are discussed in detail.

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arXiv2003

X-Ray Sources Overdensity Around the 3C 295 Galaxy Cluster

We present a statistical analysis of the Chandra observation of the source field around the 3C 295 galaxy cluster ($z=0.46$). The logN-logS of this field is in good agreement with that computed for the Chandra Deep Field South in this work and in previous ones. Nevertheless, the logN-logS computed separately for the four ACIS-I chips reveals that there is a significant excess of sources to the North-North East and a void to the South of the central cluster. Such an asymmetric distribution is confirmed by the two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, which excludes ($P \sim 3%$) a uniform distribution. In addition, a strong spatial correlation emerges from the study of the angular correlation function of the field: the angular correlation function is above that expected for X-ray sources on a few arcmin scales. In synthesis, the present analysis may indicate a filament of the large scale structure of the Universe toward 3C 295. This kind of studies may open-up a new way to map (with high efficiency) high-density peaks of large scale structures at high-z.

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arXiv2003

X-Ray Sources Overdensity Around 3C 295

We present a statistical analysis of the Chandra observation of the source field around the 3C 295 galaxy cluster ($z=0.46$). Three different methods of analysis, namely a chip by chip logN-logS, a two dimentional Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, and the angular correlation function (ACF) show a strong overdensity of sources in the North-East of the field, that may indicate a filament of the large scale structure of the Universe toward 3C 295.

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arXiv2003

The HELLAS2XMM 1dF survey: on the nature of high X-ray to optical flux ratio sources

We present results from the photometric and spectroscopic identification of 122 X-ray sources discovered by XMM-Newton in the 2-10 keV band (the HELLAS2XMM 1dF sample). One of the most interesting results (which is found also in deeper sourveys) is that ~20% of the sources have an X-ray to optical flux ratio (X/O) ten times or more higher than that of optically selected AGN. Unlike the faint sources found in the ultra-deep Chandra and XMM-Newton surveys, which reach X-ray (and optical) fluxes >~10 times lower than in the HELLAS2XMM sample, many of the extreme X/O sources in our sample have R~25 and are therefore accessible to optical spectroscopy. We report the identification of 13 sources with extreme X/O values. While four of these sources are broad line QSO, eight of them are narrow line QSO, seemingly the extension to very high luminosity of the type 2 Seyfert galaxies.

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arXiv2003

The HELLAS2XMM survey: IV. Optical identifications and the evolution of the accretion luminosity in the Universe

We present results from the photometric and spectroscopic identification of 122 X-ray sources recently discovered by XMM-Newton in the 2-10 keV band (the HELLAS2XMM 1dF sample). Their flux cover the range 8E-15-4E-13 cgs and the total area surveyed is 0.9 deg2. About 20% of the hard X-ray selected sources have an X-ray to optical flux ratio (X/O) ten times or more higher than that of optically selected AGN. Unlike the faint sources found in the ultra-deep Chandra and XMM-Newton surveys, which reach X-ray (and optical) fluxes more than one order of magnitude lower than the HELLAS2XMM survey sources, many of the extreme X/O sources in our sample have R<=25 and are therefore accessible to optical spectroscopy. We report the identification of 13 sources with X/O>10: 8 are narrow line QSO (i.e. QSO2), four are broad line QSO. We use a combined sample of 317 hard X-ray selected sources (HELLAS2XMM 1dF, CDFN 1Msec, SSA13 and Lockman Hole flux limited samples), 221 with measured z, to evaluate the cosmological evolution of the hard X-ray source's number and luminosity densities. Looking backward in time, the low luminosity sources (logL(2-10keV) = 43-44 erg/s) increase in number at a rate different than the high luminosity sources (logL(2-10keV)>44.5 erg/s), reaching a maximum around z=1 and then levelling off beyond z=2. This translates into an accretion driven luminosity density which is dominated by sources with logL(2-10keV) < 44.5 erg/s up to at least z=1, while the contribution of the same sources and of those with logL(2-10keV)>44.5 erg/s appear to be comparable between z=2 and 4.

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arXiv2003

The Hellas2XMM survey: III. Multiwavelength observations of hard X-ray selected sources in the PKS 0312-77 field

We present extensive optical, radio and infrared follow-up observations of a sample of 35 hard X-ray (2-10 keV) selected sources discovered serendipitously in the PV XMM-Newton observation of the radio-loud quasar PKS 0312-77 field, for which also an archival Chandra observation is available. The observations have been carried out as part of the HELLAS2XMM survey, a program aimed to understand the nature of the sources responsible for the bulk of the hard X-ray Background (XRB). The identification of the optical counterparts greatly benefits from the positional accuracy obtained from Chandra and radio observations. As a consequence, the spectroscopic completeness of the present sample (80%) is limited only by the faintness of the optical counterparts. The multiwavelength coverage of our survey allows us to unveil a large spread in the overall properties of hard X-ray selected sources. At low redshift (z<1), the source breakdown includes Broad Line AGN, Narrow Emission-Line Galaxies, and optically ``normal'' galaxies. All the ten sources at z>1 are spectroscopically classified as Broad Line AGNs. A few of them show significant intrinsic X-ray absorption (N(H)>10^22 cm^-2), further supporting previous evidence of a decoupling between optical and X-ray properties at high luminosities and redshifts. Finally, a non negligible fraction (15%) of the hard X-ray sources are not detected down to the limiting magnitude of the optical images. The corresponding high X-ray to optical flux ratio, X-ray and optical-infrared colors strongly suggest that they are high redshift, obscured AGN.

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