arXiv subjects

Isabella Lamperti

Publications and source records attributed to Isabella Lamperti.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

BASS XXII: The BASS DR2 AGN Catalog and Data

We present the AGN catalog and optical spectroscopy for the second data release of the Swift BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS DR2). With this DR2 release we provide 1425 optical spectra, of which 1181 are released for the first time, for the 858 hard X-ray selected AGN in the Swift BAT 70-month sample. The majority of the spectra (813/1425, 57%) are newly obtained from VLT/Xshooter or Palomar/Doublespec. Many of the spectra have both higher resolution (R>2500, N~450) and/or very wide wavelength coverage (3200-10000 A, N~600) that are important for a variety of AGN and host galaxy studies. We include newly revised AGN counterparts for the full sample and review important issues for population studies, with 44 AGN redshifts determined for the first time and 780 black hole mass and accretion rate estimates. This release is spectroscopically complete for all AGN (100%, 858/858) with 99.8% having redshift measurements (857/858) and 96% completion in black hole mass estimates of unbeamed AGN (outside the Galactic plane). This AGN sample represents a unique census of the brightest hard X-ray selected AGN in the sky, spanning many orders of magnitude in Eddington ratio (Ledd=10^-5-100), black hole mass (MBH=10^5-10^10 Msun), and AGN bolometric luminosity (Lbol=10^40-10^47 ergs/s).

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arXiv2022

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey XXI: The Data Release 2 Overview

The BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) is designed to provide a highly complete census of the key physical parameters of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) that power local active galactic nuclei (AGN) (z<0.3), including their bolometric luminosity, black hole mass, accretion rates, and line-of-sight gas obscuration, and the distinctive properties of their host galaxies (e.g., star formation rates, masses, and gas fractions). We present an overview of the BASS data release 2 (DR2), an unprecedented spectroscopic survey in spectral range, resolution, and sensitivity, including 1449 optical (3200-10000 A) and 233 NIR (1-2.5 um) spectra for the brightest 858 ultra-hard X-ray (14-195 keV) selected AGN across the entire sky and essentially all levels of obscuration. This release provides a highly complete set of key measurements (emission line measurements and central velocity dispersions), with 99.9% measured redshifts and 98% black hole masses estimated (for unbeamed AGN outside the Galactic plane). The BASS DR2 AGN sample represents a unique census of nearby powerful AGN, spanning over 5 orders of magnitude in AGN bolometric luminosity, black hole mass, Eddington ratio, and obscuration. The public BASS DR2 sample and measurements can thus be used to answer fundamental questions about SMBH growth and its links to host galaxy evolution and feedback in the local universe, as well as open questions concerning SMBH physics. Here we provide a brief overview of the survey strategy, the key BASS DR2 measurements, data sets and catalogs, and scientific highlights from a series of DR2-based works.

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arXiv2022

BASS XXIV: The BASS DR2 Spectroscopic Line Measurements and AGN Demographics

We present the second catalog and data release of optical spectral line measurements and AGN demographics of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey, which focuses on the of Swift-BAT hard X-ray detected AGNs. We use spectra from dedicated campaigns and publicly available archives to investigate spectral properties of most of the AGNs listed in the 70-month Swift-BAT all-sky catalog; specifically, 743 of the 746 unbeamed and unlensed AGNs (99.6%). We find a good correspondence between the optical emission line widths and the hydrogen column density distributions using the X-ray spectra, with a clear dichotomy of AGN types for NH = 10^22 cm-2. Based on optical emission-line diagnostics, we show that 48%-75% of BAT AGNs are classified as Seyfert, depending on the choice of emission lines used in the diagnostics. The fraction of objects with upper limits on line emission varies from 6% to 20%. Roughly 4% of the BAT AGNs have lines too weak to be placed on the most commonly used diagnostic diagram, [O III]λ5007/H\b{eta} versus [N II]λ6584/Hα, despite the high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of their spectra. This value increases to 35% in the [O III]λ5007/[O II]λ3727 diagram, owing to difficulties in line detection. Compared to optically-selected narrow-line AGNs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the BAT narrow-line AGNs have a higher rate of reddening/extinction, with Hα/H\b{eta} > 5 (~ 36%), indicating that hard X-ray selection more effectively detects obscured AGNs from the underlying AGN population. Finally, we present a subpopulation of AGNs that feature complex broad-lines (34%, 250/743) or double-peaked narrow emission lines (2%, 17/743).

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arXiv2020

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey-XX: Molecular Gas in Nearby Hard X-ray Selected AGN Galaxies

We present the host galaxy molecular gas properties of a sample of 213 nearby (0.01 10^44 erg/s) increases by ~10-100 between a molecular gas mass of 10^8.7 Msun and 10^10.2 Msun. Higher Eddington ratio AGN galaxies tend to have higher molecular gas masses and gas fractions. Higher column density AGN galaxies (Log NH>23.4) are associated with lower depletion timescales and may prefer hosts with more gas centrally concentrated in the bulge that may be more prone to quenching than galaxy wide molecular gas. The significant average link of host galaxy molecular gas supply to SMBH growth may naturally lead to the general correlations found between SMBHs and their host galaxies, such as the correlations between SMBH mass and bulge properties and the redshift evolution of star formation and SMBH growth.

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arXiv2019

The HASHTAG project I. A Survey of CO(3-2) Emission from the Star Forming Disc of M31

We present a CO(3-2) survey of selected regions in the M31 disc as part of the JCMT large programme, HARP and SCUBA-2 High-Resolution Terahertz Andromeda Galaxy Survey (HASHTAG). The 12 CO(3-2) fields in this survey cover a total area of 60 square arcminutes, spanning a deprojected radial range of 2 - 14 kpc across the M31 disc. Combining these observations with existing IRAM 30m CO(1-0) observations and JCMT CO(3-2) maps of the nuclear region of M31, as well as dust temperature and star formation rate surface density maps, we are able to explore the radial distribution of the CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) integrated intensity ratio (R31) and its relationship with dust temperature and star formation. We find that the value of R31 between 2 - 9 kpc galactocentric radius is 0.14, significantly lower than what is seen in the nuclear ring at ~1 kpc (R31 ~ 0.8), only to rise again to 0.27 for the fields centred on the 10 kpc star forming ring. We also found that R31 is positively correlated with dust temperature, with Spearman's rank correlation coefficient $ρ$ = 0.55. The correlation between star formation rate surface density and CO(3--2) intensity is much stronger than with CO(1-0), with $ρ$ = 0.54 compared to -0.05, suggesting that the CO(3-2) line traces warmer and denser star forming gas better. We also find that R31 correlates well with star formation rate surface density, with $ρ$ = 0.69.

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arXiv2019

The CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) luminosity line ratio in nearby star-forming galaxies and AGN from xCOLD GASS, BASS and SLUGS

We study the r31=L'CO(3-2)/L'CO(1-0) luminosity line ratio in a sample of nearby (z < 0.05) galaxies: 25 star-forming galaxies (SFGs) from the xCOLD GASS survey, 36 hard X-ray selected AGN host galaxies from BASS and 37 infrared luminous galaxies from SLUGS. We find a trend for r31 to increase with star-formation efficiency (SFE). We model r31 using the UCL-PDR code and find that the gas density is the main parameter responsible for variation of r31, while the interstellar radiation field and cosmic ray ionization rate play only a minor role. We interpret these results to indicate a relation between SFE and gas density. We do not find a difference in the r31 value of SFGs and AGN host galaxies, when the galaxies are matched in SSFR ( = 0.52 +/- 0.04 for SFGs and = 0.53 +/- 0.06 for AGN hosts). According to the results of UCL-PDR models, the X-rays can contribute to the enhancement of the CO line ratio, but only for strong X-ray fluxes and for high gas density (nH > 10$^4$ cm-3). We find a mild tightening of the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation when we use the molecular gas mass surface density traced by CO(3-2) (Pearson correlation coefficient R=0.83), instead of the molecular gas mass surface density traced by CO(1-0) (R=0.78), but the increase in correlation is not statistically significant (p-value=0.06). This suggests that the CO(3-2) line can be reliably used to study the relation between SFR and molecular gas for normal SFGs at high redshift, and to compare it with studies of low-redshift galaxies, as is common practice.

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arXiv2019

Estimating the molecular gas mass of low-redshift galaxies from a combination of mid-infrared luminosity and optical properties

We present CO(J=1-0) and/or CO(J=2-1) spectroscopy for 31 galaxies selected from the ongoing MaNGA survey, obtained with multiple telescopes. This sample is combined with CO observations from the literature to study the correlation of the CO luminosities ($L_{\rm CO(1-0)}$) with the mid-infrared luminosities at 12 ($L_{12 μm}$) and 22 $μ$m ($L_{\rm 22 μm}$), as well as the dependence of the residuals on a variety of galaxy properties. The correlation with $L_{\rm 12 μm}$ is tighter and more linear, but galaxies with relatively low stellar masses and blue colors fall significantly below the mean $L_{\rm CO(1-0)}-L_{\rm 12μm}$ relation. We propose a new estimator of the CO(1-0) luminosity (and thus the total molecular gas mass) that is a linear combination of three parameters: $L_{\rm 12 μm}$, $M_\ast$ and $g-r$. We show that, with a scatter of only 0.18 dex in log $(L_{\rm CO(1-0)})$, this estimator provides unbiased estimates for galaxies of different properties and types. An immediate application of this estimator to a compiled sample of galaxies with only CO(J=2-1) observations yields a distribution of the CO(J=2-1) to CO(J=1-0) luminosity ratios ($R21$) that agrees well with the distribution of real observations, in terms of both the median and the shape. Application of our estimator to the current MaNGA sample reveals a gas-poor population of galaxies that are predominantly early-type and show no correlation between molecular gas-to-stellar mass ratio and star formation rate, in contrast to gas-rich galaxies. We also provide alternative estimators with similar scatters, based on $r$ and/or $z$ band luminosities instead of $M_\ast$. These estimators serve as cheap and convenient $M_{\rm mol}$ proxies to be potentially applied to large samples of galaxies, thus allowing statistical studies of gas-related processes of galaxies.

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arXiv2019

JINGLE V: Dust properties of nearby galaxies derived from hierarchical Bayesian SED fitting

We study the dust properties of 192 nearby galaxies from the JINGLE survey using photometric data in the 22-850micron range. We derive the total dust mass, temperature T and emissivity index beta of the galaxies through the fitting of their spectral energy distribution (SED) using a single modified black-body model (SMBB). We apply a hierarchical Bayesian approach that reduces the known degeneracy between T and beta. Applying the hierarchical approach, the strength of the T-beta anti-correlation is reduced from a Pearson correlation coefficient R=-0.79 to R=-0.52. For the JINGLE galaxies we measure dust temperatures in the range 17-30 K and dust emissivity indices beta in the range 0.6-2.2. We compare the SMBB model with the broken emissivity modified black-body (BMBB) and the two modified black-bodies (TMBB) models. The results derived with the SMBB and TMBB are in good agreement, thus applying the SMBB, which comes with fewer free parameters, does not penalize the measurement of the cold dust properties in the JINGLE sample. We investigate the relation between T and beta and other global galaxy properties in the JINGLE and Herschel Reference Survey (HRS) sample. We find that beta correlates with the stellar mass surface density (R=0.62) and anti-correlates with the HI mass fraction (M(HI)/M*, R=-0.65), whereas the dust temperature correlates strongly with the SFR normalized by the dust mass (R=0.73). These relations can be used to estimate T and beta in galaxies with insufficient photometric data available to measure them directly through SED fitting.

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arXiv2019

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey -- XIII. The nature of the most luminous obscured AGN in the low-redshift universe

We present a multi wavelength analysis of 28 of the most luminous low-redshift narrow-line, ultra-hard X-ray selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) drawn from the 70 month Swift/BAT all-sky survey, with bolometric luminosities of log(L_bol/erg/s) > 45.25. The broad goal of our study is to determine whether these objects have any distinctive properties, potentially setting them aside from lower-luminosity obscured AGN in the local Universe. Our analysis relies on the first data release of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS/DR1) and on dedicated observations with the VLT, Palomar, and Keck observatories. We find that the vast majority of our sources agree with commonly used AGN selection criteria which are based on emission line ratios and on mid-infrared colours. Our AGN are predominantly hosted in massive galaxies (9.8 < log(M_*/M_sun) < 11.7); based on visual inspection of archival optical images, they appear to be mostly ellipticals. Otherwise, they do not have distinctive properties. Their radio luminosities, determined from publicly available survey data, show a large spread of almost 4 orders of magnitude - much broader than what is found for lower X-ray luminosity obscured AGN in BASS. Moreover, our sample shows no preferred combination of black hole masses (M_BH) and/or Eddington ratio (lambda_Edd), covering 7.5 < log(M_BH/M_sun) < 10.3 and 0.01 < lambda_Edd < 1. Based on the distribution of our sources in the lambda_Edd-N_H plane, we conclude that our sample is consistent with a scenario where the amount of obscuring material along the line of sight is determined by radiation pressure exerted by the AGN on the dusty circumnuclear gas.

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arXiv2019

JINGLE, a JCMT legacy survey of dust and gas for galaxy evolution studies: II. SCUBA-2 850 μm data reduction and dust flux density catalogues

We present the SCUBA-2 850 $μm$ component of JINGLE, the new JCMT large survey for dust and gas in nearby galaxies, which with 193 galaxies is the largest targeted survey of nearby galaxies at 850 $μm$. We provide details of our SCUBA-2 data reduction pipeline, optimised for slightly extended sources, and including a calibration model adjusted to match conventions used in other far-infrared data. We measure total integrated fluxes for the entire JINGLE sample in 10 infrared/submillimetre bands, including all WISE, Herschel-PACS, Herschel-SPIRE and SCUBA-2 850 $μm$ maps, statistically accounting for the contamination by CO(J=3-2) in the 850 $μm$ band. Of our initial sample of 193 galaxies, 191 are detected at 250 $μm$ with a $\geq$ 5$σ$ significance. In the SCUBA-2 850 $μm$ band we detect 126 galaxies with $\geq$ 3$σ$ significance. The distribution of the JINGLE galaxies in far-infrared/sub-millimetre colour-colour plots reveals that the sample is not well fit by single modified-blackbody models that assume a single dust-emissivity index $(β)$. Instead, our new 850 $μm$ data suggest either that a large fraction of our objects require $β< 1.5$, or that a model allowing for an excess of sub-mm emission (e.g., a broken dust emissivity law, or a very cold dust component 10 K) is required. We provide relations to convert far-infrared colours to dust temperature and $β$ for JINGLE-like galaxies. For JINGLE the FIR colours correlate more strongly with star-formation rate surface-density rather than the stellar surface-density, suggesting heating of dust is greater due to younger rather than older stellar-populations, consistent with the low proportion of early-type galaxies in the sample.

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arXiv2018

NuSTAR and Keck Observations of Heavily Obscured Quasars Selected by WISE

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 AGN (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 ~ 10^43 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 10^25 cm^-2, confirming that WISE and optical selection can identify very heavily obscured quasars that may be missed in X-ray surveys, and 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 is not adequate to explain the more obscured AGN, but it may imply a different scale of obscuration in the galaxy.

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arXiv2018

JINGLE, a JCMT legacy survey of dust and gas for galaxy evolution studies: I. Survey overview and first results

JINGLE is a new JCMT legacy survey designed to systematically study the cold interstellar medium of galaxies in the local Universe. As part of the survey we perform 850um continuum measurements with SCUBA-2 for a representative sample of 193 Herschel-selected galaxies with M*>10^9Msun, as well as integrated CO(2-1) line fluxes with RxA3m for a subset of 90 of these galaxies. The sample is selected from fields covered by the Herschel-ATLAS survey that are also targeted by the MaNGA optical integral-field spectroscopic survey. The new JCMT observations combined with the multi-wavelength ancillary data will allow for the robust characterization of the properties of dust in the nearby Universe, and the benchmarking of scaling relations between dust, gas, and global galaxy properties. In this paper we give an overview of the survey objectives and details about the sample selection and JCMT observations, present a consistent 30 band UV-to-FIR photometric catalog with derived properties, and introduce the JINGLE Main Data Release (MDR). Science highlights include the non-linearity of the relation between 850um luminosity and CO line luminosity, and the serendipitous discovery of candidate z>6 galaxies.

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arXiv2017

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey - V. X-ray properties of the Swift/BAT 70-month AGN catalog

Hard X-ray ($\geq 10$ keV) observations of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) can shed light on some of the most obscured episodes of accretion onto supermassive black holes. The 70-month Swift/BAT all-sky survey, which probes the 14-195 keV energy range, has currently detected 838 AGN. We report here on the broad-band X-ray (0.3-150 keV) characteristics of these AGN, obtained by combining XMM-Newton, Swift/XRT, ASCA, Chandra, and Suzaku observations in the soft X-ray band ($\leq 10$ keV) with 70-month averaged Swift/BAT data. The non-blazar AGN of our sample are almost equally divided into unobscured ($N_{\rm H}< 10^{22}\rm cm^{-2}$) and obscured ($N_{\rm H}\geq 10^{22}\rm cm^{-2}$) AGN, and their Swift/BAT continuum is systematically steeper than the 0.3-10 keV emission, which suggests that the presence of a high-energy cutoff is almost ubiquitous. We discuss the main X-ray spectral parameters obtained, such as the photon index, the reflection parameter, the energy of the cutoff, neutral and ionized absorbers, and the soft excess for both obscured and unobscured AGN.

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arXiv2017

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey--VIII. Type 1 AGN With Massive Absorbing Columns

We explore the relationship between X-ray absorption and optical obscuration within the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) which has been collecting and analyzing the optical and X-ray spectra for 641 hard X-ray selected ($E>14$ keV) active galactic nuclei (AGN). We use the deviation from a linear broad H$α$-to-X-ray relationship as an estimate of the maximum optical obscuration towards the broad line region and compare the $A_{\rm V}$ to the hydrogen column densities ($N_{\rm H}$) found through systematic modeling of their X-ray spectra. We find that the inferred columns implied by $A_{\rm V}$ towards the broad line region (BLR) are often orders of magnitude less than the columns measured towards the X-ray emitting region indicating a small scale origin for the X-ray absorbing gas. After removing 30\% of Sy 1.9s that potentially have been misclassified due to outflows, we find that 86\% (164/190) of the Type 1 population (Sy 1--1.9) are X-ray unabsorbed as expected based on a single obscuring structure. However, 14\% (26/190), of which 70\% (18/26) are classified as Sy 1.9, are X-ray absorbed, suggesting the broad line region itself is providing extra obscuration towards the X-ray corona. The fraction of X-ray absorbed Type 1 AGN remains relatively constant with AGN luminosity and Eddington ratio, indicating a stable broad line region covering fraction.

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arXiv2017

xCOLD GASS: the complete IRAM-30m legacy survey of molecular gas for galaxy evolution studies

We introduce xCOLD GASS, a legacy survey providing a census of molecular gas in the local Universe. Building upon the original COLD GASS survey, we present here the full sample of 532 galaxies with CO(1-0) measurements from the IRAM-30m telescope. The sample is mass-selected in the redshift interval $0.01 10^9$M$_{\odot}$. The CO(1-0) flux measurements are complemented by observations of the CO(2-1) line with both the IRAM-30m and APEX telescopes, HI observations from Arecibo, and photometry from SDSS, WISE and GALEX. Combining the IRAM and APEX data, we find that the CO(2-1) to CO(1-0) luminosity ratio for integrated measurements is $r_{21}=0.79\pm0.03$, with no systematic variations across the sample. The CO(1-0) luminosity function is constructed and best fit with a Schechter function with parameters {$L_{\mathrm{CO}}^* = (7.77\pm2.11) \times 10^9\,\mathrm{K\,km\,s^{-1}\, pc^{2}}$, $ϕ^{*} = (9.84\pm5.41) \times 10^{-4} \, \mathrm{Mpc^{-3}}$ and $α= -1.19\pm0.05$}. With the sample now complete down to stellar masses of $10^9$M$_{\odot}$, we are able to extend our study of gas scaling relations and confirm that both molecular gas fraction and depletion timescale vary with specific star formation rate (or offset from the star-formation main sequence) much more strongly than they depend on stellar mass. Comparing the xCOLD GASS results with outputs from hydrodynamic and semi-analytic models, we highlight the constraining power of cold gas scaling relations on models of galaxy formation.

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arXiv2017

The close environments of accreting massive black holes are shaped by radiative feedback

The large majority of the accreting supermassive black holes in the Universe are obscured by large columns of gas and dust. The location and evolution of this obscuring material have been the subject of intense research in the past decades, and are still highly debated. A decrease in the covering factor of the circumnuclear material with increasing accretion rates has been found by studies carried out across the electromagnetic spectrum. The origin of this trend has been suggested to be driven either by the increase in the inner radius of the obscuring material with incident luminosity due to the sublimation of dust; by the gravitational potential of the black hole; by radiative feedback; or by the interplay between outflows and inflows. However, the lack of a large, unbiased and complete sample of accreting black holes, with reliable information on gas column density, luminosity and mass, has left the main physical mechanism regulating obscuration unclear. Using a systematic multi-wavelength survey of hard X-ray-selected black holes, here we show that radiation pressure on dusty gas is indeed the main physical mechanism regulating the distribution of the circumnuclear material. Our results imply that the bulk of the obscuring dust and gas in these objects is located within the sphere of influence of the black hole (i.e., a few to tens of parsecs), and that it can be swept away even at low radiative output rates. The main physical driver of the differences between obscured and unobscured accreting black holes is therefore their mass-normalized accretion rate.

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arXiv2017

NuSTAR Resolves the First Dual AGN above 10 keV in SWIFT J2028.5+2543

We have discovered heavy obscuration in the dual active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) source SWIFT J2028.5+2543 using Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). While an early XMM-Newton study suggested the emission was mainly from NGC 6921, the superior spatial resolution of NuSTAR above 10 keV resolves the Swift/BAT emission into two sources associated with the nearby galaxies MCG +04-48-002 and NGC 6921 (z = 0.014) with a projected separation of 25.3 kpc (91"). NuSTAR's sensitivity above 10 keV finds both are heavily obscured to Compton-thick levels (N H=(1-2)x10^24 cm-2) and contribute equally to the BAT detection ({L}10-50 {keV}{int}= 6x10^42 erg s-1). The observed luminosity of both sources is severely diminished in the 2-10 keV band, illustrating the importance of >10 keV surveys like those with NuSTAR and Swift/BAT. Compared to archival X-ray data, MCG +04-48-002 shows significant variability (>3) between observations. Despite being bright X-ray AGNs, they are difficult to detect using optical emission-line diagnostics because MCG +04-48-002 is identified as a starburst/composite because of the high rates of star formation from a luminous infrared galaxy while NGC 6921 is only classified as a LINER using line detection limits. SWIFT J2028.5+2543 is the first dual AGN resolved above 10 keV and is the second most heavily obscured dual AGN discovered to date in the X-rays other than NGC 6240.

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arXiv2017

BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey I: Spectral Measurements, Derived Quantities, and AGN Demographics

We present the first catalog and data release of the Swift-BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS). We analyze optical spectra of the majority of AGN (77%, 641/836) detected based on their 14-195 keV emission in the 70-month Swift BAT all-sky catalog. This includes redshift determination, absorption and emission line measurements, and black hole mass and accretion rate estimates for the majority of obscured and un-obscured AGN (74%, 473/641) with 340 measured for the first time. With ~90% of sources at z<0.2, the survey represents a significant census of hard-X-ray selected AGN in the local universe. In this first catalog paper, we describe the spectroscopic observations and datasets, and our initial spectral analysis. The FWHM of the emission lines show broad agreement with the X-ray obscuration (~94%), such that Sy 1-1.8 have NH<10^21.9 cm^-2, and Seyfert 2, have NH>10^21.9 cm^-2. Seyfert 1.9 show a range of column densities. Compared to narrow line AGN in the SDSS, the X-ray selected AGN have a larger fraction of dusty host galaxies suggesting these types of AGN are missed in optical surveys. Using the most sensitive [OIII]/Hbeta and [NII]/Halpha emission line diagnostic, about half of the sources are classified as Seyferts, ~15% reside in dusty galaxies that lack an Hbeta detection, but for which the line upper limits imply either a Seyfert or LINER, ~15% are in galaxies with weak or no emission lines despite high quality spectra, and a few percent each are LINERS, composite galaxies, HII regions, or in known beamed AGN.

astro-ph.HE↗