AGN-host galaxy connection: multiwavelength study

The connection between active galactic nuclei (AGN) and their hosts showed to be important for understanding the formation and evolution of active galaxies. Using X-ray and deep optical data, we study how morphology and colours are related to X-ray properties at redshifts z<=2.0 for a sample of > 300 X-ray detected AGN in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Survey (SXDS; Furusawa et al. 2008) and Groth-Westphal Strip (GWS; Pović et al. 2009) fields. We performed our morphological classification using the galSVM code (Huertas-Company et al. 2008), which is a new method that is particularly suited when dealing with high-redshift sources. To separate objects between X-ray unobscured and obscured, we used X-ray hardness ratio HR(0.5-2 keV/2-4.5 keV). Colour-magnitude diagrams were studied in relationship to redshift, morphology, X-ray obscuration, and X-ray-to-optical flux ratio. Around 50% of X-ray detected AGN at z<=2.0 analysed in this work reside in spheroidal and bulge-dominated galaxies, while at least 18% have disk-dominated hosts. This suggests that different mechanisms may be responsible for triggering the nuclear activity. When analysing populations of X-ray detected AGN in both colour-magnitude (CMD) and colour-stellar mass diagrams (Figure 1), the highest number of sources is found to reside in the green valley at redshifts ~ 0.5-1.5. For the first time we studied CMD of these AGN in relation to morphology and X-ray obscuration, finding that they can reside in both early- and late-type hosts, where both morphological types cover similar ranges of X-ray obscuration (Figure 1). Our findings appear to confirm some previous suggestions that X-ray selected AGN residing in the green valley represent a transitional population (e.g. Nandra et al. 2007, Silverman et al. 2008, Treister et al. 2009), quenching star formation by means of different AGN feedback mechanisms and evolving to red-sequence galaxies. More details on analysis and results presented here can be found in Pović et al. 2012.