Accretion properties of X-ray AGN: Evidence for radiation-regulated obscuration with redshift-dependent host galaxy contribution

Abstract

We adopt a Bayesian X-ray spectral approach to investigate the accretion properties of unobscured ($20<\log (N_{\mathrm{H}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}<22$) and obscured ($22<\log (N_{\mathrm{H}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}<24$) active galactic nuclei (AGN) to shed light on the orientation vs evolution scenarios for the origin of the obscuring material. For a sample of 3882 X-ray-selected AGN from the {\it Chandra} COSMOS Legacy, AEGIS and CDFS extragalactic surveys, we constrain their stellar masses, $M_{\star }$, intrinsic X-ray luminosities, $L_{\mathrm{X}}$, obscuring column densities, $N_{\mathrm{H}}$, and specific accretion rates $\lambda \propto L_{\mathrm{X}}/M_{\star }$. By combining these observables within a Bayesian non-parametric approach, we infer, for the first time, the specific accretion rate distribution (SARD) of obscured and unobscured AGN to $z\approx 3$, i.e. the probability of a galaxy with mass $M_{\star }$ at redshift $z$ hosting an AGN with column density $N_{\mathrm{H}}$ and specific accretion rate $\lambda$. Our findings indicate that (1) both obscured and unobscured SARDs share similar shapes, shifting towards higher accretion rates with redshift, (2) unobscured SARDs exhibit a systematic offset towards higher $\lambda$ compared to obscured SARD for all redshift intervals, (3) the obscured AGN fraction declines sharply at $\log {\lambda }_{\mathrm{break}}\sim -2$ for $z<0.5$, but shifts to higher $\lambda$ values with increasing redshift, (4) the incidence of AGN within the theoretically unstable blow-out region of the $\lambda -N_{\mathrm{H}}$ plane increases with redshift. These observations provide compelling evidence for AGN "downsizing" and radiation-regulated nuclear-scale obscuration with an increasing host galaxy contribution towards higher redshifts.

Published at MNRAS

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