Investigating the nuclear properties of highly accreting active galactic nuclei with XMM-Newton

Abstract

Our understanding of highly accreting AGNs is hampered by the lack of a complete systematic investigation in terms of their main spectral and variability properties, and by the relative paucity of them in the local Universe, especially those powered by supermassive black holes with $M_{\mathrm{BH}}>10^8{M}_{\odot }$. To overcome this limitation, we present here the X-ray spectral analysis of a new, large sample of 61 highly accreting AGNs named as the \emph{XMM-Newton} High-Eddington Serendipitous AGN Sample, or X-HESS, obtained by cross-correlating the 11th release of the \emph{XMM-Newton} serendipitous catalogue and the catalogue of spectral properties of quasars from the SDSS DR14. The X-HESS AGNs are spread across wide intervals with a redshift of $0.06<z<3.3$, a black hole mass of $6.8<\log (M_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\odot })<9.8$, a bolometric luminosity of $44.7<\log (L_{\mathrm{bol}}/{\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}}^{-1})<48.3$, and an Eddington ratio of $-0.2<\log {\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}<0.5$, and more than one third of these AGNs can rely on multiple observations at different epochs, allowing us to investigate also their variability. We find a large scatter in the $\Gamma -{\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}$ distribution of the highly accreting X-HESS AGNs. A significant correlation is only found by considering a sample of lower-\ledd\ AGNs with ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}\lesssim 0.3$. The $\Gamma -{\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}$ relation appears to be more statistically sound for AGNs with lower $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ and/or $L_{\mathrm{bol}}$. We investigate the possibility of transforming the $\Gamma -{\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd}}$ plane into a fully epoch-dependent frame by calculating the Eddington ratio from the simultaneous optical/UV data from the optical monitor, ${\lambda }_{\mathrm{Edd},O/UV}$. Finally, we also get a mild indication of a possible anti-correlation between $\Gamma$ and the strength of the soft excess.

arXiv comment38 pages, 13 figures and 4 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

References in corpus (103)

• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• Correcting for the Effects of Interstellar Extinction
• The European Photon Imaging Camera on XMM-Newton: The MOS Cameras
• The Zwicky Transient Facility: System Overview, Performance, and First Results
• Composite Quasar Spectra From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Spectral Energy Distributions and Multiwavelength Selection of Type 1 Quasars
• Preliminary Results from NEOWISE: An Enhancement to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for Solar System Science
• Formation of Supermassive Black Holes by Direct Collapse in Pregalactic Halos
• An ultra-luminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30
• Powerful Outflows and Feedback from Active Galactic Nuclei
• The XMM-Newton Optical/UV Monitor Telescope
• A light bending model for the X-ray temporal and spectral properties of accreting black holes
• The XMM-Newton view of PG quasars I. X-ray continuum and absorption
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Fourteenth Data Release
• Is the soft excess in AGN real?
• The X-ray to optical-UV luminosity ratio of X-ray selected Type 1 AGN in XMM-COSMOS
• Red and Reddened Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Wind from the black-hole accretion disk driving a molecular outflow in an active galaxy
• The Pan-STARRS1 distant z>5.6 quasar survey: more than 100 quasars within the first Gyr of the universe
• The XMM-Newton serendipitous survey IX. The fourth XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue
• Universal bolometric corrections for AGN over 7 luminosity decades
• Clearing Out a Galaxy
• Physical properties of 15 quasars at $z\gtrsim 6.5$
• Black hole feedback in the luminous quasar PDS 456
• The Hard X-ray Spectrum as a Probe for Black-Hole Growth in Radio-Quiet Active Galactic Nuclei
• Dust Reddening in SDSS Quasars
• Slim Disk Model for Soft X-Ray Excess and Variability of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies
• What controls the C IV line profile in active galactic nuclei?
• A comparison of the hard ASCA spectral slopes of broad and narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
• CAIXA: a Catalogue of AGN In the XMM-Newton Archive I. Spectral analysis
• Hyper-Eddington accretion flows onto massive black holes
• The Hard X-ray Spectral Slope as an Accretion-Rate Indicator in Radio-Quiet Active Galactic Nuclei
• Spectral properties of quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 14: The catalog
• A statistical relation between the X-ray spectral index and Eddington ratio of active galactic nuclei in deep surveys
• Accretion-Driven Evolution of Black Holes: Eddington Ratios, Duty Cycles, and Active Galaxy Fractions
• The WISSH Quasars Project I. Powerful ionised outflows in hyper-luminous quasars
• A Compton-thick Wind in the High Luminosity Quasar, PDS 456
• Correcting CIV-Based Virial Black Hole Masses
• Testing warm Comptonization models for the origin of the soft X-ray excess in AGN
• The Radius-Luminosity Relationship Depends on Optical Spectra in Active Galactic Nuclei
• The long term X-ray spectral variability of AGN
• A combined Optical and X-ray Spectra Study for Type 1 AGN. III. Broadband SED Properties
• Multiwavelength campaign on Mrk 509. IV. Optical-UV-X-ray variability and the nature of the soft X-ray excess
• BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey -- XII. The relation between coronal properties of Active Galactic Nuclei and the Eddington ratio
• The VVDS type-1 AGN sample: The faint end of the luminosity function
• The extinction law at high redshift and its implications
• The SDSS/XMM-Newton Quasar Survey: Correlation between X-ray spectral slope and Eddington ratio
• Investigating the nature of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies with high-energy spectral complexity
• Relativistic slim disks with vertical structure
• The Swift/BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) -- VI. The Gamma_X - L/L_Edd relation
• The XMM-Newton serendipitous ultraviolet source survey catalogue
• Long XMM observation of the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxy IRAS13224-3809: rapid variability, high spin and a soft lag
• Long-term variability of AGN at hard X-rays
• Prevalence of X-ray variability in the Chandra Deep Field South
• Highly Accreting Quasars: Sample Definition and Possible Cosmological Implications
• Radiation spectra of warm and optically thick coronae in AGN
• The gentle monster PDS 456: the kpc scale molecular outflow and its implications for QSO feedback
• Supermassive black holes with high accretion rates in active galactic nuclei. XI. Accretion disk reverberation mapping of Mrk 142
• The WISSH Quasars Project III. X-ray properties of hyper-luminous quasars
• X-ray spectral properties of the AGN sample in the northern XMM-XXL field
• On the formation of the first quasars
• A hard X-ray view of the soft excess in AGN
• Mining for Dust in Type 1 Quasars
• The most luminous blue quasars at $3.0<z<3.3$. I. A tale of two X-ray populations
• On the Observational Difference Between the Accretion Disk-Corona Connections among Super- and Sub-Eddington Accreting Active Galactic Nuclei
• X-Ray Properties of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies with Very Small Broad-Line Widths
• Ensemble X-ray variability of Active Galactic Nuclei. II. Excess Variance and updated Structure Function
• The soft X-ray excess: NLS1s vs. BLS1s
• On how much X-ray and UV radiation processes are coupled in accretion disks: AGN case
• The X-Ray Variability of a Large, Serendipitous Sample of Spectroscopic Quasars
• Suzaku Observations of Moderately Obscured (Compton-thin) Active Galactic Nuclei Selected by Swift/BAT Hard X-ray Survey
• No Redshift Evolution in the Broad Line Region Metallicity up to z=7.54: Deep NIR Spectroscopy of ULAS J1342+0928
• Variability and the X-ray/UV ratio of active galactic nuclei. II. Analysis of a low-redshift Swift sample
• X-ray Coronal Properties of Swift/BAT-Selected Seyfert 1 Active Galactic Nuclei
• A New Comprehensive 2-D Model of the Point Spread Functions of the XMM-Newton EPIC Telescopes : Spurious Source Suppression and Improved Positional Accuracy
• A Long XMM-Newton Observation of An Extreme Narrow Line Seyfert 1: PG 1244+026
• Super- and sub-Eddington accreting massive black holes: A comparison of slim and thin accretion discs through study of the spectral energy distribution
• What is the origin of the soft excess in AGN?
• Variability and the X-ray/UV ratio of Active Galactic Nuclei
• SUPER III. Broad Line Region properties of AGN at z$\sim$2
• X-ray spectroscopic survey of highly-accreting AGN
• A Suzaku sample of unabsorbed narrow-line and broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies: I. X-ray spectral properties
• Slim Disks with Transition Regions and Applications to Microquasars and Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies
• Cross-Calibration of the XMM-Newton EPIC pn & MOS On-Axis Effective Areas Using 2XMM Sources
• The most powerful quasar outflows as revealed by the Civ λ1549 resonance line
• Radio Detection of VIK J2318$-$3113, the Most Distant Radio-Loud Quasar ($z$=6.44)
• The soft excess of the NLS1 galaxy Mrk 359 studied with an XMM-Newton-NuSTAR monitoring campaign
• Supermassive black holes with high accretion rates in active galactic nuclei: X. Optical variability characteristics
• Statistical evaluation of the flux cross-calibration of the XMM-Newton EPIC cameras
• A New Sample of Candidate Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Selected by X-ray Variability
• A longer XMM-Newton look at I Zwicky 1: physical conditions and variability of the ionised absorbers
• Location and energetics of the ultra-fast outflow in PG 1448+273
• BAL QSOs and Extreme UFOs: the Eddington connection
• Speed limits for radiation driven SMBH winds
• Quasar spectral variability from the XMM-Newton serendipitous source catalogue
• On the relation between hard X-ray photon index versus accretion rate for super-Eddington accreting quasars
• Testing Super-Eddington Accretion onto a Supermassive Black Hole: Reverberation Mapping of PG 1119+120
• Soft X-Ray Excess from Shocked Accreting Plasma in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Slowing down of cosmic growth of supermassive black holes: Theoretical prediction of the Eddington ratio distribution
• Disc wind or disc line? The extraordinary Fe-K feature of Mrk 1513
• Effects of spin on constraining the seeds and growth of $\gtrsim 10^9{M}_{\odot }$ supermassive black holes in $z>6.5$ Quasars

Cited by in corpus (6)

• The Average Soft X-ray Spectra of eROSITA Active Galactic Nuclei
• Revisiting the X-ray-to-UV relation of Quasars in the era of all-sky surveys
• The X-ray weakness of Little Red Dots and JWST-selected AGN: comparison with local AGN in different accretion regimes
• Back to basics: Little Red Dots as galaxies and dust-obscured AGNs in a synthetic NIRCam sky simulated with L-GalaxiesBH
• Unveiling the dynamics of the ultra-fast outflow in IRAS 13224-3809 with X-ray spectroscopy
• Measuring monster MBHs: maybe mighty, maybe merely massive