Related papers: The obscured quasar population from optical, mid-i…
Recent X-ray surveys with Chandra and XMM-Newton have found several genuine Type II quasars, the long sought-after population of high-luminosity (high-redshift) Seyfert 2 galaxies, and a sizable number of Type II quasar candidates. However,…
Recent X-ray surveys have provided a large number of high-luminosity, obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), the so-called Type 2 quasars. Despite the large amount of multi-wavelength supporting data, the main parameters related to the…
We present early results from the spectroscopic follow-up of a sample of candidate obscured AGN selected in the mid-infrared from the Spitzer First Look Survey. Our selection allows a direct comparison of the numbers of obscured and…
Current X-ray surveys have proved to be essential tools in order to identify and study AGNs across cosmic time. However, there is evidence that the most heavily obscured AGNs are largely missing even in the deepest surveys. The search for…
Type II quasars are luminous AGNs whose central engines and broad-line regions are obscured by intervening material; such objects only recently have been discovered in appreciable numbers. We study the multiwavelength properties of 291 type…
We present the results of a program of optical and near-infrared spectroscopic follow-up of candidate Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) selected in the mid-infrared. This survey selects both normal and obscured AGN closely matched in luminosity…
We have compiled a sample of 21 low redshift (z < 0.3), luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) with large Balmer decrements (Halpha/Hbeta > 7) using the galaxy and QSO catalogs of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Early Data Release. Using this…
Type II quasars are the long-sought luminous analogs of type II (narrow emission line) Seyfert galaxies, suggested by unification models of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and postulated to account for an appreciable fraction of the cosmic…
To understand the Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) phenomenon and their impact on the evolution of galaxies, a complete AGN census is required; however, finding heavily obscured AGNs is observationally challenging. Here we use the deep and…
Type II quasars are suggested by unification models of Active Galactic Nuclei as luminous analogs of Seyfert 2 galaxies. A number of different methods have been used hitherto to discover type II quasars, but only a handful have been found.…
Some recent results on the physical and statistical properties of nearby and distant AGN are presented. I first discuss the properties of "elusive" AGNs, i.e. obscured AGNs which do not show a Seyfert-like spectrum in the optical. Then I…
Hard X-ray surveys have uncovered a large population of heavily obscured AGN. They also reveal a population of quasars with moderate obscuration at both visible and X-ray wavelengths. We use Chandra selected samples of quasars from the…
We propose a large quasar demographic optical multi-object spectroscopic (MOS) survey targeting over 50 million AGN candidates up to the highest redshifts possible in the optical (z~6.5), with repeat visits, using a variety of selection…
Recently, Zakamska et al. (2003) selected 291 high-ionization narrow emission-line AGN in the redshift range 0.3-0.83 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopic data. The sample includes both Seyfert II galaxies and their higher…
We discuss the relative merits of mid-infrared and X-ray selection of type-2 quasars. We describe the mid-infrared, near-infrared and radio selection criteria used to find a population of redshift z~2 type-2 quasars which we previously…
Quasars (of type I) are the luminous analogs of type I Seyfert galaxies. Within the framework of unified models of active galaxies, the population of quasars of type II recently discovered with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are the luminous…
Context: A long-standing challenge of observational AGN research is to find type 2 quasars, the luminous analogues of Seyfert-2 galaxies. Aims: We search for luminous narrow-line type 2 AGN, characterise their properties, and compare them…
Recent Chandra and XMM-Newton surveys have uncovered a large fraction of the obscured AGN responsible of the hard X-ray background. One of the most intriguing results of extensive programs of follow-up observations concerns the optical and…
Selection of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the infrared allows the discovery of AGN whose optical emission is extinguished by dust. In this paper, we use the Spitzer Space Telescope First Look Survey (FLS) to assess what fraction of AGN…
In recent years deep X-ray and infrared surveys have provided an efficient way to find accreting supermassive black holes, otherwise known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), in the young universe. Such surveys can, unlike optical surveys,…