Piercing through Highly Obscured and Compton-thick AGNs in the Chandra Deep Fields. II. Are Highly Obscured AGNs the Missing Link in the Merger-Triggered AGN-Galaxy Coevolution Models?

Abstract

By using a large highly obscured ($N_{\mathrm{H}}>10^{23}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^{-2}$) AGN sample (294 sources at $z\sim 0-5$) selected from detailed X-ray spectral analyses in the deepest Chandra surveys, we explore distributions of these X-ray sources in various optical/IR/X-ray color-color diagrams and their host-galaxy properties, aiming at characterizing the nuclear obscuration environment and the triggering mechanism of highly obscured AGNs. We find that the refined IRAC color-color diagram fails to identify the majority of X-ray selected highly obscured AGNs, even for the most luminous sources with $\log L_{\mathrm{X}}(\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1})>44$. Over 80% of our sources will not be selected as heavily obscured candidates using the flux ratio of $f_{24\mu \mathrm{m}}/f_R>1000$ and $R-K>4.5$ criteria, implying complex origins and conditions for the obscuring materials that are responsible for the heavy X-ray obscuration. The average star formation rate of highly obscured AGNs is similar to that of stellar mass- ($M_{\ast }$-) and $z$-controlled normal galaxies, while the lack of quiescent hosts is observed for the former. Partial correlation analyses imply that highly obscured AGN activity (traced by $L_{\mathrm{X}}$) appears to be more fundamentally related to $M_{\ast }$, and no dependence of $N_{\mathrm{H}}$ on either $M_{\ast }$ or SFR is detected. Morphology analyses reveal that 61% of our sources have a significant disk component, while only 27% of them exhibit irregular morphological signatures. These findings together point toward a scenario where secular processes (e.g., galactic-disk instabilities), instead of mergers, are most probable to be the leading mechanism that triggers accretion activities of X-ray-selected highly obscured AGNs.

arXiv comment23 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, resubmitted to ApJ after addressing referee's comments

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