The Complete Infrared View of Active Galactic Nuclei from the 70 Month Swift/BAT Catalog
Abstract
We systematically investigate the near- to far-infrared (FIR) photometric properties of a nearly complete sample of local active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected in the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) all-sky ultra-hard X-ray (14-195 keV) survey. Out of 606 non-blazar AGNs in the Swift/BAT 70 month catalog at high galactic latitudes of | b| > 10^\circ , we obtain IR photometric data of 604 objects by cross-matching the AGN positions with catalogs from the WISE, AKARI, IRAS, and Herschel infrared observatories. We find a good correlation between the ultra-hard X-ray and mid-IR luminosities over five orders of magnitude (41< {log}{L}14{--195}< 46). Informed by previous measurements of the intrinsic spectral energy distribution of AGNs, we find FIR pure-AGN candidates whose FIR emission is thought to be AGN-dominated with low star-formation activity. We demonstrate that the dust covering factor decreases with the bolometric AGN luminosity, confirming the luminosity-dependent unified scheme. We also show that the completeness of the WISE color-color cut in selecting Swift/BAT AGNs increases strongly with 14-195 keV luminosity.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- January 2017
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1611.09858
- Bibcode:
- 2017ApJ...835...74I
- Keywords:
-
- galaxies: active;
- galaxies: nuclei;
- infrared: galaxies;
- X-rays: galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
- E-Print:
- 24 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. The full list of Table 1 is available at http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~ichikawa/table1_MRT.txt