Related papers: A physical model for the hard X-ray background
The cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) seems to be intimately linked to their host galaxies. Active galactic nuclei (AGN) can be probed by deep X-ray surveys. We review results from large X-ray selected samples…
AGN are known to have complex X-ray spectra that depend on both the properties of the accreting SMBH (e.g. mass, accretion rate) and the distribution of obscuring material in its vicinity ("torus"). Often however, simple and even unphysical…
We study the properties of a sample of 211 heavily-obscured Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) candidates in the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South selecting objects with f_24/f_R>1000 and R-K>4.5. Of these, 18 were detected in X-rays and found…
A recent revision of black hole scaling relations (Kormendy & Ho 2013), indicates that the local mass density in black holes should be increased by up to a factor of five with respect to previously determined values. The local black hole…
We describe the results of a survey of the UV absorption properties of the Boroson & Green sample of AGN, which extends from the Seyfert (M_V ~ -21) to the luminous quasar (M_V ~ -27) level. The survey is based mostly on HST archival data…
In order to relate the observed evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function and the luminosity function of active galactic nuclei (AGN), we explore a co-evolution scenario in which AGN are associated only with the very last phases of the…
We present a measure of the hard (2-8 keV) X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of Active Galactic Nuclei up to z~5. At high redshifts, the wide area coverage of the Chandra Multiwavength Project is crucial to detect rare and luminous (Lx >…
Chandra data in the COSMOS, AEGIS-XD and 4Ms CDFS are combined with optical/near-IR photometry to determine the rest-frame U-V vs V-J colours of X-ray AGN hosts at mean redshifts 0.40 and 0.85. This combination of colours (UVJ) provides an…
We explore the connections between the evolving galaxy and AGN populations. We present a simple phenomenological model that links the evolving galaxy mass function and the evolving quasar luminosity function, which makes specific and…
We use a phenomenological model to show that black hole growth in the local Universe (z < 0.1) can be described by two separate, mass independent Eddington ratio distribution functions (ERDFs). We assume that black holes can be divided into…
Finding and characterizing the population of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that produces the X-ray background (XRB) is necessary to connect the history of accretion to observations of galaxy evolution at longer wavelengths. The year 2012…
We investigate the X-ray number counts in the 1-2 Ms Chandra Deep Fields (CDFs) to determine the contributions of faint X-ray source populations to the extragalactic X-ray background (XRB). X-ray sources were separated into Active Galactic…
The soft excess seen in many AGN is most probably due to partially ionized material moving at relativistic speeds close to the black hole. There are currently two potential geometries for this material, one where it is out of the line of…
(Abridged) We present a method that tracks the growth of supermassive black holes (BHs) and the feedback from AGN in cosmological simulations. Our model is a substantially modified version of the one by Springel et al. (2005). Because…
High-redshift active galactic nuclei (AGN) have long been recognized as key probes of early black hole growth and galaxy evolution. However, modeling this population remains difficult due to the wide range of luminosities and black hole…
We report on the iron K-alpha line properties of a sample of Seyfert galaxies observed with the XMM-Newton EPIC pn instrument. Using a systematic and uniform analysis, we find that complexity at iron-K is extremely common in the XMM…
We constrain the number density and evolution of Compton-thick Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), and their contribution to the extragalactic X-ray background. In the local Universe we use the wide area surveys from the Swift and INTEGRAL…
Models of galaxy evolution assume some connection between the AGN and star formation activity in galaxies. We use the multi-wavelength information of the CDFS to assess this issue. We select the AGNs from the 3Ms XMM-Newton survey and…
Recent observations of Seyfert 1 AGN with Chandra, XMM-Newton and Suzaku revealed broad iron K_alpha emission lines, some relativistically blurred. For galactic black hole X-ray binaries XMM-Newton spectra during hard state also reveal the…
SMBHs are theorised to undergo significant growth in the early Universe, however, the X-ray Luminosity Function (XLF), used as a principal tracer of the SMBH accretion density, lacks observational constraints at z>6, until now. We present…